New Super Mario Bros.
Platformer - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup - 3 Saves
1 player / 4 player WLAN
The original Super Mario Bros. was always my favorite of the series. Yes, subsequent entries had more variety to the stages, new power ups, and different enemies, but they just didn't resonate with me very well. So when Nintendo set out to make a sequel of the original for the DS, I was ecstatic. That is... until it came out. I absolutely hated it.
Where to begin... Let's start with the stages. Imagine my disappointment when I started up the game, hit a few blocks, jumped on a few goombas, and hit the end flag in about 20 seconds. The original SMB never had such short stages, and it certainly was a lot more challenging. Thankfully, the stages grow in length as the game progresses, but the difficulty level remains pretty easy overall.
The gameplay remains relatively intact. Your main weapon is still your feet. Jumping on enemies will get rid of most of them, including bosses. But this time you have some new jumping tricks. The coolest addition is the wall jump. It allows you to use your surrounding environment to scale higher heights. There is also a Ground Pound attack, in which you jump, and then stomp straight down. This creates a more powerful attack, and can break blocks as well. The style of the game is most reminiscent of the first Super Mario Bros., but you will see heavy influences of Mario 3 and World in the maps and stage design. But the limited musical tracks, classic swimming stages, and lack of flight definitely make it a tribute to the first.
Like the original Super Mario Bros., you've got your Mushroom, your fireball plant, and the invincibility star as power-ups. But this time they've added a Mega Mushroom, Mini Mushroom, and Turtle Shell. The Mega Mushroom lasts temporarily, but increases Mario's size to almost the height of the screen. He's invulnerable in this state, and depending on how much he destroys, he'll get some 1ups out of it too. The Mini Mushroom turns Mario extremely small. In exchange for the risk of a one-hit kill, Mini Mario can enter tiny passageways, run on water, and have floatier jumps. Finally, Shell Mario can hide in his shell to avoid taking hits. In addition, he'll be able to slide around in turtle shell form to attack enemies and hit blocks. The problem with these powerups is that they have limited usage. The Mega Mushroom is not well integrated into the game, and seems to be only useful for grabbing some extra lives. There's no stages that make use of his gigantic size, making it feel like an afterthought. Mini and Shell Mario are both a blessing and a curse. Sometimes the floaty physics of Mini Mario actually make stages much harder, if not impossible, to play. And the problem with Shell Mario is that the shell slide will activate while you're running, so if you're caught unprepared, you could slide right off a ledge. The thing is, although some stage areas are designed with those power-ups in mind, the power-up is often unavailable in that stage or makes it a random drop. That means you will have to replay a previous stage to get the necessary power-up, clear it, and then head back to the stage where you needed the power-up for entry. If you die, you'll have to do it all again. There's a lot of back-and-forth. It creates a tedious loop. Perhaps to alleviate this situation, you're also able to store one power-up on the touchscreen. But often, these power-ups are put into storage by a random drop, so chances are you won't have what you want in inventory. Overall, these new power-ups proved to be more aggravating than delightful.
Another aspect that is totally inexcusable is its save system. Being a portable game, you would think that Nintendo would add some sort of save anywhere feature, such as a temporary quicksave. There is no such thing. Instead, if you want to save, you have to either clear a tower/fort stage, or unlock an optional path on the map screen. When I'm playing on-the-go, I don't have time to dedicate playing 5 stages all at once. The solution according to the manual? Close the DS lid and put it in Sleep Mode. How is that a solution? What if your battery runs out while you're living your real life? What if you happen to forget that your DS is in sleep mode, and you leave it on for 2 weeks without playing? Why all games, especially portable, don't have a temporary quicksave feature is beyond me. If the game simply erases the quicksave after you've loaded it, then the game is just as challenging, but infinitely more convenient. It's ridiculous that NSMB only offers hardsaves in a select few save-points.
But for all that is wrong with the game, I finally "get" it. If you're just trying to beat the game, New Super Mario Bros. is a pretty mediocre experience. But NSMB incorporates a collectathon element, which ends up being its saving grace. Every stage of the game has 3 Star Coins to find. Some of them are out in the open, and may take some work to get. Others are a little more hidden and require logic and deduction to find. They'll test your timing and ability to make precision jumps. They'll also test your resourcefulness in using what the stage offers you. This is where NSMB shines. The design annoyances are still present for the Star Coins, but there are also some really creative locations for them as well. In addition, several stages have more than one exit. Find them, and you'll be able to access new paths on the world map. These new elements make NSMB play more like a puzzle game, and that actually changes the game considerably.
With design mishaps like poorly integrated power-ups, needing to replay previous stages, and lack of a quicksave, New Super Mario Bros. is full of irritation. Play the game to the end and you're likely to be bored by the lack of difficulty. But the inclusion of alternate exits and out-of-the-way coins transform the game into more of a thinking man's platformer. Pursue these extras, and you'll find that the bulk of the challenge lies here. Try as I may, I could hate it no longer. NSMB is flawed, but fun.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Bionic Commando
Bionic Commando
Action - Gameboy
Password
1 player
Things you can do with a grappling arm:
- Scale new heights
- Swing over chasms
- Stun enemies
- Grab items
While everyone else is playing Bionic Commando Rearmed, I thought about revisiting the classic. Only, my NES is nearly impossible to get working nowadays, even with the "blow trick", and my Bionic Commando cart is MIA. I knew there was a Gameboy Bionic Commando, so I decided to do some research on it to find out if it was worth playing. What I discovered was that 1) There was also another Bionic Commando released for GBC called Elite Forces and 2) The original GB one is a remix of the NES Bionic Commando. Thanks to an Amazon Marketplace seller, I got the chance to experience the GB version for myself.
The game is very much an action platformer, with a twist. Unlike most platformers where you have options like wall jumping and double jumping to reach the next platform, Bionic Commando has no jumping at all. Instead, the gameplay centers around a grappling arm. Oh. You'll need to use plenty of weapons to dispatch of enemies as well, but the star of the show is the arm. You can shoot your grappling arm out horizontally, vertically or diagonally. Latch onto a platform, and you can propel yourself up to it. Latch onto a ceiling, and you can use your grappling arm as a rope to swing across. But the horizontal distance you swing depends on how much your arm is extended. And your arm extension depends on the distance between your character and the object your arm is clinging to. The control demands precision in positioning your character, as well as timing of the grappling arm. Luckily, the controls are very tight and rewarding. The design of the stages is such that you absolutely have to get comfortable utilizing the mechanics of the arm, or you cannot advance. You can choose what stages you want to play on the map. But every time you move, enemies will move as well. If you and an enemy contact, you'll enter an encounter stage where you can pick up some much needed continues.
Being a remix of the NES game, the grappling arm, weapons, armor and radio are mostly identical. The map and stages are also similar to the original as well. Visuals take a noticeable hit - everything is far less detailed. Maybe as a consolation, both the sound quality and musical composition are vastly improved. It also seems as if the action is much more fast paced in this version. But there are some noteable differences. Capcom rebalanced the grenade launcher/rocket launcher so that it's not nearly as powerful as before. In the NES version, taking down the power reactors took 3 hits of the launcher to finish a stage. Not so in the GB version. It takes about 10 hits, which forces you to engage enemies in the power room. This is another area in which the Gameboy differs. The power room encounters in the NES version were relatively uniform. But on the GB, they introduce new bosses in the power room segments. Couple that with the reduced effectiveness of the launcher, and you've got a higher difficulty end encounters. The swinging segments are generally easier on the GB version, except the difficulty ramps up considerably by the end. One major change is that the Albatross vehicle is a boss in the NES version, but is an entire stage in the GB version. It will put your grappling skills to the test. Finally, the last major change is that map encounters with the enemy are now horizontally scrolling action stages. In the NES version, they were vertical scrolling, reminiscent of Ikari Warriors. But in the GB version, its style is more consistent with the rest of the game.
Overall, the Gameboy Bionic Commando recreates the experience of the NES version. Bionic Commando on Gameboy certainly makes some changes - sometimes making the game easier, other times making it harder, and sometimes making it just plain different. Nevertheless, the two versions share the same game mechanics, familiar stages, and essence. But the problem with a remix/remake is that it will inevitably be compared to the original. You expect certain things because the original had them, and when they're not duplicated exactly or at all, it's hard not to be disappointed. And so I find myself conflicted. Bionic Commando GB is unquestionably a good game, and reminds me of exactly what I miss about old school gaming - tight controls and level design that revolves around mastery of the gameplay mechanics. But I can't shake the feeling that something was missing from it all. Maybe what I really want in a Bionic Commando game isn't the swinging, isn't the grappling, but merely a face explosion.
Action - Gameboy
Password
1 player
Things you can do with a grappling arm:
- Scale new heights
- Swing over chasms
- Stun enemies
- Grab items
While everyone else is playing Bionic Commando Rearmed, I thought about revisiting the classic. Only, my NES is nearly impossible to get working nowadays, even with the "blow trick", and my Bionic Commando cart is MIA. I knew there was a Gameboy Bionic Commando, so I decided to do some research on it to find out if it was worth playing. What I discovered was that 1) There was also another Bionic Commando released for GBC called Elite Forces and 2) The original GB one is a remix of the NES Bionic Commando. Thanks to an Amazon Marketplace seller, I got the chance to experience the GB version for myself.
The game is very much an action platformer, with a twist. Unlike most platformers where you have options like wall jumping and double jumping to reach the next platform, Bionic Commando has no jumping at all. Instead, the gameplay centers around a grappling arm. Oh. You'll need to use plenty of weapons to dispatch of enemies as well, but the star of the show is the arm. You can shoot your grappling arm out horizontally, vertically or diagonally. Latch onto a platform, and you can propel yourself up to it. Latch onto a ceiling, and you can use your grappling arm as a rope to swing across. But the horizontal distance you swing depends on how much your arm is extended. And your arm extension depends on the distance between your character and the object your arm is clinging to. The control demands precision in positioning your character, as well as timing of the grappling arm. Luckily, the controls are very tight and rewarding. The design of the stages is such that you absolutely have to get comfortable utilizing the mechanics of the arm, or you cannot advance. You can choose what stages you want to play on the map. But every time you move, enemies will move as well. If you and an enemy contact, you'll enter an encounter stage where you can pick up some much needed continues.
Being a remix of the NES game, the grappling arm, weapons, armor and radio are mostly identical. The map and stages are also similar to the original as well. Visuals take a noticeable hit - everything is far less detailed. Maybe as a consolation, both the sound quality and musical composition are vastly improved. It also seems as if the action is much more fast paced in this version. But there are some noteable differences. Capcom rebalanced the grenade launcher/rocket launcher so that it's not nearly as powerful as before. In the NES version, taking down the power reactors took 3 hits of the launcher to finish a stage. Not so in the GB version. It takes about 10 hits, which forces you to engage enemies in the power room. This is another area in which the Gameboy differs. The power room encounters in the NES version were relatively uniform. But on the GB, they introduce new bosses in the power room segments. Couple that with the reduced effectiveness of the launcher, and you've got a higher difficulty end encounters. The swinging segments are generally easier on the GB version, except the difficulty ramps up considerably by the end. One major change is that the Albatross vehicle is a boss in the NES version, but is an entire stage in the GB version. It will put your grappling skills to the test. Finally, the last major change is that map encounters with the enemy are now horizontally scrolling action stages. In the NES version, they were vertical scrolling, reminiscent of Ikari Warriors. But in the GB version, its style is more consistent with the rest of the game.
Overall, the Gameboy Bionic Commando recreates the experience of the NES version. Bionic Commando on Gameboy certainly makes some changes - sometimes making the game easier, other times making it harder, and sometimes making it just plain different. Nevertheless, the two versions share the same game mechanics, familiar stages, and essence. But the problem with a remix/remake is that it will inevitably be compared to the original. You expect certain things because the original had them, and when they're not duplicated exactly or at all, it's hard not to be disappointed. And so I find myself conflicted. Bionic Commando GB is unquestionably a good game, and reminds me of exactly what I miss about old school gaming - tight controls and level design that revolves around mastery of the gameplay mechanics. But I can't shake the feeling that something was missing from it all. Maybe what I really want in a Bionic Commando game isn't the swinging, isn't the grappling, but merely a face explosion.
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Meccha! Taiko no Tatsujin DS - 7tsu no Shima no Daibouken
Meccha! Taiko no Tatsujin DS - 7tsu no Shima no Daibouken
Rhythm - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup
1 player / 4 player WLAN
Not much to say really. It's Namco's rhythm game, Taiko no Tatsujin, but on the DS. This is the 2nd Taiko game for the DS, and like the first, it comes with two drumstick stylii to be used for the game. It also comes with a set of stickers. Who can resist free stuff?
The coolest thing about the game is the touchscreen interface. Of course nothing can compare to beating on the taiko prop in the arcades, but tapping the screen with your two stylii drumsticks is pretty intuitive. You can play the game with the normal Dpad/buttons too, but what's the point? The game is similar in style to most other rhythm games. "Notes" will scroll across the screen and when it hits a certain point, you tap the screen to time it exactly. On the DS version, there is a picture of a giant taiko drum on the touchscreen. If the note is red, you hit the drum with your stylus. If the note is blue, you hit a space outside of the drum. There are some special freestyle segments too, where you drum as fast as you can to rack up more points, and some other parts where you're forced to alternate your red and blue hits. All in all, it's a simple system, but it works pretty well.
The songs themselves are a mix of Jpop, classical music, folk songs, anime themes and namco video game music. The game sports a total of 50 songs, which ain't too shabby. And there are several difficulties for each song, so there's plenty of material here.
There's some interesting things about the game's structure. There are a lot of hidden events, akin to achievements. So when you hit certain milestones, you'll get emails, bonuses and congratulation screens. The in-game email system is full of personality. You'll receive messages from the game's cast of characters, each with their own unique writing style. They'll sometimes "attach" rewards, such as clothes for your drum to wear or additional instrument sounds to play with. Definitely the game's audience is more geared towards kids, but it's still very charming. The email system acts as a mark of progress, so it's kinda cool. There's also a story mode in the game that lets you unlock some new songs. It's kind of strange in that they won't let you fight bosses unless you've unlocked the proper clothing and wear them for the encounter. But the story mode has unique challenges to them including:
- Finish song at 100% rating
- Hit notes to damage bosses, as they send obstacles to block your vision of the note charts
- Play vs 3 computer opponents for highest score, as they use powerups and send little creatures to block where you can hit on the drum
Aside from the story mode, the general free play mode lets you play any song at whatever difficulty you want. Included is also a 2x/3x scroll speed option. The one thing I noticed is that compared to a Konami Bemani game, Taiko no Tatsujin is more mainstream-friendly. By that, I mean it's easy. In Bemani games, lots of times you are struggling to even pass a song and that's a big challenge in of itself. When passing that 9 foot song in DDR or 11 rated song in Beatmania IIDX, you feel a great sense of accomplishment. That type of feeling is lost in Taiko no Tatsujin (at least... until you unlock Oni mode). Instead, Taiko has a very lenient system. Even if you are messing up like crazy, chances are that you'll pass it. But there is still challenge to be found in precision. Like other rhythm games, playing for score is a big thing, so while it may be easy to pass a song, it is difficult to get 100% Good notes. So depending on what type of game player you are, the lack of difficulty in passing songs may or may not affect you. Finally there's a multiplayer versus mode, where you can even play 4 players off of one cart. The only drawback is that if you're the only one with the game, you'd be the only one with the two drumstick stylii and your friends would need to find additional props (fingers possibly?) or use the button controls.
Overall, the game works. The touchscreen interface allows for a more tactile experience than simply hitting buttons. Sure it can't match holding real drumsticks on the console and arcade versions, but it's a workable substitute. Plus I'm a sucker for unique accessories like the bundled drumstick stylii. With plenty of different modes offered and a sizeable songlist, Meccha! Taiko no Tatsujin DS is a whole lot of game.
Rhythm - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup
1 player / 4 player WLAN
Not much to say really. It's Namco's rhythm game, Taiko no Tatsujin, but on the DS. This is the 2nd Taiko game for the DS, and like the first, it comes with two drumstick stylii to be used for the game. It also comes with a set of stickers. Who can resist free stuff?
The coolest thing about the game is the touchscreen interface. Of course nothing can compare to beating on the taiko prop in the arcades, but tapping the screen with your two stylii drumsticks is pretty intuitive. You can play the game with the normal Dpad/buttons too, but what's the point? The game is similar in style to most other rhythm games. "Notes" will scroll across the screen and when it hits a certain point, you tap the screen to time it exactly. On the DS version, there is a picture of a giant taiko drum on the touchscreen. If the note is red, you hit the drum with your stylus. If the note is blue, you hit a space outside of the drum. There are some special freestyle segments too, where you drum as fast as you can to rack up more points, and some other parts where you're forced to alternate your red and blue hits. All in all, it's a simple system, but it works pretty well.
The songs themselves are a mix of Jpop, classical music, folk songs, anime themes and namco video game music. The game sports a total of 50 songs, which ain't too shabby. And there are several difficulties for each song, so there's plenty of material here.
There's some interesting things about the game's structure. There are a lot of hidden events, akin to achievements. So when you hit certain milestones, you'll get emails, bonuses and congratulation screens. The in-game email system is full of personality. You'll receive messages from the game's cast of characters, each with their own unique writing style. They'll sometimes "attach" rewards, such as clothes for your drum to wear or additional instrument sounds to play with. Definitely the game's audience is more geared towards kids, but it's still very charming. The email system acts as a mark of progress, so it's kinda cool. There's also a story mode in the game that lets you unlock some new songs. It's kind of strange in that they won't let you fight bosses unless you've unlocked the proper clothing and wear them for the encounter. But the story mode has unique challenges to them including:
- Finish song at 100% rating
- Hit notes to damage bosses, as they send obstacles to block your vision of the note charts
- Play vs 3 computer opponents for highest score, as they use powerups and send little creatures to block where you can hit on the drum
Aside from the story mode, the general free play mode lets you play any song at whatever difficulty you want. Included is also a 2x/3x scroll speed option. The one thing I noticed is that compared to a Konami Bemani game, Taiko no Tatsujin is more mainstream-friendly. By that, I mean it's easy. In Bemani games, lots of times you are struggling to even pass a song and that's a big challenge in of itself. When passing that 9 foot song in DDR or 11 rated song in Beatmania IIDX, you feel a great sense of accomplishment. That type of feeling is lost in Taiko no Tatsujin (at least... until you unlock Oni mode). Instead, Taiko has a very lenient system. Even if you are messing up like crazy, chances are that you'll pass it. But there is still challenge to be found in precision. Like other rhythm games, playing for score is a big thing, so while it may be easy to pass a song, it is difficult to get 100% Good notes. So depending on what type of game player you are, the lack of difficulty in passing songs may or may not affect you. Finally there's a multiplayer versus mode, where you can even play 4 players off of one cart. The only drawback is that if you're the only one with the game, you'd be the only one with the two drumstick stylii and your friends would need to find additional props (fingers possibly?) or use the button controls.
Overall, the game works. The touchscreen interface allows for a more tactile experience than simply hitting buttons. Sure it can't match holding real drumsticks on the console and arcade versions, but it's a workable substitute. Plus I'm a sucker for unique accessories like the bundled drumstick stylii. With plenty of different modes offered and a sizeable songlist, Meccha! Taiko no Tatsujin DS is a whole lot of game.
Monday, July 28, 2008
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Action Adventure - Nintendo 64
Battery - 3 saves
1 player
If this reads a bit like my take on FFX, it's unintentional. I've always respected the care that went into the Zelda games, particularly the first one. But I never really thought they were any good, aside from the more action-oriented The Adventure of Link. Traditional Zelda was a mixture of action, adventure, and puzzle. The problem is, it did not excel in any of those areas. Simply fusing elements from different genres doesn't really cut it for me. But Ocarina of Time has historical significance. Being the first game to receive a perfect review score in Famitsu, it generated a lot of buzz. Now that I've come around to playing it, I went into it with lots of skepticism. Turns out, Ocarina of Time is so much more better than the old Zelda games that I actually enjoyed it.
Ocarina of Time is the first 3D Zelda, and it's much better for it. First of all, the combat is much deeper than ever before. In 2D Zelda, it was just a simplistic hack 'n slash type of affair. Just point Link in the direction of the enemy and jam on the A-button. Not so in Ocarina. The 3rd dimension allows for consideration of height. Some enemies will be slightly higher or lower than you when they toss projectiles. But to compensate, you have fine control over your shield angle with the analog stick, so you can reflect projectiles wherever you want. The 3rd dimension also allows for more interesting enemy patterns. Some of the enemies have shields and will only lower when they attack you. They'll even do some jumping attacks that do more damage. This could get disorienting in 3D, so Ocarina employs a lock-on system that has influenced 3D action design today (DMC3, ZOE2, etc). While locked on, you now have a lot of evasive maneuvers in the form of a side-stepping, rolling, and hopping backwards, etc. It makes the fighting much more engaging than the older games. One negative aspect is that the controls feel a little bit clunky. The Z-trigger activates lock-on and if there's an enemy in your view, it will snap the camera to them. But the Z-trigger is also the same button for recentering the camera. So sometimes you are trying to do a camera reset so you can see what's ahead of you. But if the game picks up an enemy, it'll snap to them instead, which is not what you want. Some of your commands are available when locked-on, and another set of commands are available when lock is not activated which complicates this matter further. There have been many times in which I want to camera-reset, then roll, to escape an attack. But then the game picks up an enemy in my field of view and then because now it's locked onto the enemy instead of camera reset, I do a jumping attack instead of a roll. The game has an option to change default Z-trigger behavior from LOCK to HOLD, which means lock-on only happens when you hold down Z. But because the option screen is only available before you start up a game, not during a play session, I keep forgetting to change it and am reminded only after I've started the game and become frustrated with the controls. Aside from that, the combat is much improved from the older Zeldas.
One area in which Ocarina of Time really shines is its puzzles. Because of its transition to 3D, Nintendo got very creative with its puzzle design. Many puzzles require using projectiles to trigger events, so the 1st person view when wielding a slingshot, for instance, is very natural and accurate. The game also takes full advantage of height differences of crates and platforms, so box puzzles and minor platforming segments are well integrated. I never thought much of the old Zelda puzzles, but here in Ocarina, I've had to stop and observe my surroundings, consider what's in my inventory, talk to characters for hints, and logically deduce my next step. I've been stumped. But usually, when I figure out the solution, I end up appreciating its cleverness. I'm also glad they kept the "Puzzle solved!" chime from the old Zeldas, as it adds a touch of personality. The puzzles also extend somewhat to towns too. There's just a lot of optional things to do in the game, and some of these tasks require experimentation and thinking, just like the dungeon puzzles. The puzzles are very much the highlight.
Some of the minor things I didn't like were mostly related to the dialog. First of all, the text scrolls at an abnormally slow pace. Your only options are to bear with it, or hit the text fast-forward button, which is so fast that it doesn't allow you to read any of it. The other thing is, the actual dialog is pretty bad too. Girls will add "teehee" at the end of their sentences, there are some awkward transitions from a tragic event that just occurs to a character being immediately super happy afterwards, etc. It just seems childish and not very well thought out. Finally, it does the Dragon Quest thing where the game will ask you to do something? Yes/No. No. "Oh! But you must! Can you do this for me? Yes/No" No. "Oh! But you must! Can you do this for me?" Why do they even give you a dialog option at all if you're forced into a decision anyway? It's really stupid, and Ocarina does this at many points in the game.
Despite the annoyances I have with the dialog and the clunkiness associated with having camera-reset and enemy lock-on be the same button, The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time has much to offer. Its combat system has influenced modern 3D action games. The puzzles are really well done - probably the best of any game I've played yet. And it offers a ton of things to do besides the main quest. I would hardly call Ocarina perfect, but I can definitely see its appeal. It's a well constructed game that ultimately impressed me, despite initial reservations.
Action Adventure - Nintendo 64
Battery - 3 saves
1 player
If this reads a bit like my take on FFX, it's unintentional. I've always respected the care that went into the Zelda games, particularly the first one. But I never really thought they were any good, aside from the more action-oriented The Adventure of Link. Traditional Zelda was a mixture of action, adventure, and puzzle. The problem is, it did not excel in any of those areas. Simply fusing elements from different genres doesn't really cut it for me. But Ocarina of Time has historical significance. Being the first game to receive a perfect review score in Famitsu, it generated a lot of buzz. Now that I've come around to playing it, I went into it with lots of skepticism. Turns out, Ocarina of Time is so much more better than the old Zelda games that I actually enjoyed it.
Ocarina of Time is the first 3D Zelda, and it's much better for it. First of all, the combat is much deeper than ever before. In 2D Zelda, it was just a simplistic hack 'n slash type of affair. Just point Link in the direction of the enemy and jam on the A-button. Not so in Ocarina. The 3rd dimension allows for consideration of height. Some enemies will be slightly higher or lower than you when they toss projectiles. But to compensate, you have fine control over your shield angle with the analog stick, so you can reflect projectiles wherever you want. The 3rd dimension also allows for more interesting enemy patterns. Some of the enemies have shields and will only lower when they attack you. They'll even do some jumping attacks that do more damage. This could get disorienting in 3D, so Ocarina employs a lock-on system that has influenced 3D action design today (DMC3, ZOE2, etc). While locked on, you now have a lot of evasive maneuvers in the form of a side-stepping, rolling, and hopping backwards, etc. It makes the fighting much more engaging than the older games. One negative aspect is that the controls feel a little bit clunky. The Z-trigger activates lock-on and if there's an enemy in your view, it will snap the camera to them. But the Z-trigger is also the same button for recentering the camera. So sometimes you are trying to do a camera reset so you can see what's ahead of you. But if the game picks up an enemy, it'll snap to them instead, which is not what you want. Some of your commands are available when locked-on, and another set of commands are available when lock is not activated which complicates this matter further. There have been many times in which I want to camera-reset, then roll, to escape an attack. But then the game picks up an enemy in my field of view and then because now it's locked onto the enemy instead of camera reset, I do a jumping attack instead of a roll. The game has an option to change default Z-trigger behavior from LOCK to HOLD, which means lock-on only happens when you hold down Z. But because the option screen is only available before you start up a game, not during a play session, I keep forgetting to change it and am reminded only after I've started the game and become frustrated with the controls. Aside from that, the combat is much improved from the older Zeldas.
One area in which Ocarina of Time really shines is its puzzles. Because of its transition to 3D, Nintendo got very creative with its puzzle design. Many puzzles require using projectiles to trigger events, so the 1st person view when wielding a slingshot, for instance, is very natural and accurate. The game also takes full advantage of height differences of crates and platforms, so box puzzles and minor platforming segments are well integrated. I never thought much of the old Zelda puzzles, but here in Ocarina, I've had to stop and observe my surroundings, consider what's in my inventory, talk to characters for hints, and logically deduce my next step. I've been stumped. But usually, when I figure out the solution, I end up appreciating its cleverness. I'm also glad they kept the "Puzzle solved!" chime from the old Zeldas, as it adds a touch of personality. The puzzles also extend somewhat to towns too. There's just a lot of optional things to do in the game, and some of these tasks require experimentation and thinking, just like the dungeon puzzles. The puzzles are very much the highlight.
Some of the minor things I didn't like were mostly related to the dialog. First of all, the text scrolls at an abnormally slow pace. Your only options are to bear with it, or hit the text fast-forward button, which is so fast that it doesn't allow you to read any of it. The other thing is, the actual dialog is pretty bad too. Girls will add "teehee" at the end of their sentences, there are some awkward transitions from a tragic event that just occurs to a character being immediately super happy afterwards, etc. It just seems childish and not very well thought out. Finally, it does the Dragon Quest thing where the game will ask you to do something? Yes/No. No. "Oh! But you must! Can you do this for me? Yes/No" No. "Oh! But you must! Can you do this for me?" Why do they even give you a dialog option at all if you're forced into a decision anyway? It's really stupid, and Ocarina does this at many points in the game.
Despite the annoyances I have with the dialog and the clunkiness associated with having camera-reset and enemy lock-on be the same button, The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time has much to offer. Its combat system has influenced modern 3D action games. The puzzles are really well done - probably the best of any game I've played yet. And it offers a ton of things to do besides the main quest. I would hardly call Ocarina perfect, but I can definitely see its appeal. It's a well constructed game that ultimately impressed me, despite initial reservations.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Final Fantasy X
Final Fantasy X
Role Playing Game - Playstation 2
Memory Card - 99 saves
1 player
Final Fantasy and I don't go well together. The first one was great, and actually got me interested in the genre after the original Dragon Warrior bored me to tears. Then I noticed that as I completed IV, V, VI, and IX, not a whole lot had changed. Yes, Square added ATB, job systems, weapon/item customization, melodrama and awful minigames. But they were all built on the same type of basic structure that the original followed. It had the same repetitive, brainless fights it always did. The extent of strategic depth was limited primarily to casting LIT on a water enemy. While other developers were making strides, FF remained essentially faithful to its simple roots. Given that history, I wasn't looking forward to playing FFX at all. Well. Color me surprised.
Final Fantasy X is Square's most progressive FF yet. As far as the actual fights themselves, there's a bunch of new systems. The first is that ATB is out, and a new graphical representation of turns is on display, a la Grandia. It definitely helps in planning out a strategy, because it will show you how many turns you have until an enemy gets a turn. It will also show you the effects on turn order if you use agility effects. In addition, you can swap party members in and out mid-turn. What this means is that if your party member is low on hp, you can swap in a fresh character. More significant than the systems themselves is that Square actually built the entire game around these systems. There are basically six types of attacks you can do - physical, fire, water, lightning, ice, and non-elemental magic. Every single enemy in the game has strengths and weaknesses. For example, one enemy may be weak in fire, but ice heals them, water does 0 damage, lightning does 1/2 damage, physical does normal damage. Every enemy is unique. Equipped items or spells will allow you to see these strengths/weaknesses. Because of this entirely new concept, you will be switching characters in and out, as well as switching weapons and armor mid-battle to maximize your opportunities. You absolutely cannot play FFX with just "Fight", like you could in previous FFs. To also facilitate this strengths/weaknesses concept, you will find stations in towns that will teach you about some of the monsters in the areas. The last thing you want to do is it be face-to-face with a new monster, with no idea what tricks they have up their sleeves. This is a FF where you can easily die, as a lot of monsters have special attacks and counterattacks. Boss battles are also far more interesting than FFs of old. Sometimes bosses will have different body parts, like Grandia, and will do devastating combos if those body parts are allowed to go in sequence. Other times, you will have special options called Trigger commands, that incorporate positioning. It reminds me a lot of Panzer Dragoon Saga in that regard. It's as if Square FINALLY realized how to make combat fun.
A lot of mention usually goes to its Sphere Grid system. When you level up, you don't necessarily gain any stats or skills. A level up merely gives you some traveling power on the grid. Think of it as a boardgame, with multibranching paths. Each character starts in a certain part of the grid that leads to their "natural" path, ie. Yuuna's section has stats and spells that are beneficial for a white mage. But there are junctures where you can leave that path. The advantage of the Sphere Grid is that it allows you to customize a character to your liking. But if you wander around aimlessly, your character could be pretty disadvantaged vs a dedicated path.
Outside of game systems, there's some pretty cool stuff as well. FFX features some of the best puzzles I've encountered in a traditional jRPG. Most of them involve taking a sphere here, inserting it there, push a stone tablet over there, and experimenting with all these things to unlock doors. The best part is they designed these puzzle sequences without any enemies to disrupt you. They are pretty challenging in of themselves, so it's better that they're focused experiences. I also enjoy the attention to detail throughout the game. Townsfolk will walk around, sit down, get back up, and walk in a different direction. The spontaneous behavior of the people brings about a sort of realism and livelihood to the towns. There is a foreign people in the game world, and the way FFX handles their foreign language and your learning of it is really cool too. FFX is also the first FF to feature voice, and there's lots of it. It is somewhat controversial, but I really like its addition. It accentuates dramatic scenes, and makes comedic scenes funnier, infamous laughing scene excluded. But a huge irritation for me is that character lips are not synched with the voice. It causes a disconnect, and I played the game in its original language! It's an unfortunate oversight on Square's part, because they payed attention to other details in the game.
Still, for all that FFX did right, there are many aspects of the game that are worst-in-series. I understand that Final Fantasy has been striving to be the de facto cinematic RPG out there. But FFX really goes overboard. For instance, the first 10 or so hours of the game, you play very little of it. It's all walk here, 5 minute cutscene, walk there 2 minute cutscene, fight a 1 minute battle, watch a 10 minute cutscene. That sort of pretentious crap pissed me off in Kojima games, but FFX is even worse. One time, the game shifted to a cutscene where a character said 2 lines of dialog. Then it switched back to the overworld. Not every piece of dialog deserves its own cutscene, Square. It's like they finally make a FF that's fun to play, but they won't let you play it. It does get better in that regard, but FFX is still saturated with cutscenes overall.
Even though I really like the battle engine, there are some poor design flaws. First of all, unless a party member performs an action in battle, they will not receive exp. So what that means is that you will be trying to fight each enemy, rotating your 7 members in and out so that they can all share the experience. It doesn't make the game any more fun or challenging - simply tedious. But most frustrating of all are the cheap deaths. Sometimes an enemy will ambush you, get first strike, do a special attack that immobilizes all your party members, and then it's game over before you can perform a single action. Once again, this doesn't mean the game is hard. It means it's cheap. If you don't have the right party members or equipment when a battle starts, you could be caught in that situation. Even if you have the right equipment, many defensive options only increase your chances of resisting those attacks but do not guarantee it. So you can still be in a no-opportunity, insta-death situation even if you have proper equipment. It has pissed me off on more than a few occasions, causing me to shelf the game for a time.
Finally, there are some general game problems that also detract from the experience. For one, equipment management is awful. Imagine you can hold up to 200 weapons/armor. The list fills up in the order you obtain them (via purchase, discovery, or enemy drops). There is no auto-sort, but you can manually sort if you'd like. Now imagine you've picked up your 201'st piece of equipment. Do you keep it? Well. First you look at what the weapon offers. Then you look through your list, scrolling down 200 entries to see if the weapon you picked up is better or not than what you have. Now repeat that every time you pick up another piece of equipment. Or what about selling items? How do you know which piece of equipment is crappy enough that you wanna get rid of it? Same thing. Is weapon #25 better than 26-200? You have to manually scroll back and forth through the list to compare your items. It's horribly implemented to the point where I would spend an hour of my time every now and then to manually sort all the items to group them by character. The game is also broken in its customization. You can fuse abilities to weapons/armor, and the summon creatures at the cost of certain items. Problem is... those items are generally only obtainable via Rikku's Steal command or Bribe. If you use Steal, you can only get 1-2 items per fight. Most of the items, especially rare ones, are a lot more accessible via the Bribe command. But even at the very end of the game, to bribe a single enemy, I would lose my entire savings built up in the last 60 hours. It is utterly ridiculous. Oh, there are ways of farming lots of money, by perhaps bribing the right monster and selling the proceeds to bribe some more. But unless you cheat and use a FAQ, no sane person is going to use all their money to bribe a random enemy, get the proceeds and then see if they're worth it to use/sell, document it, then reset the game, reload from save, and repeat for the 500 types of enemies in the game. (I tried it a couple times and then promptly gave up.) The design decisions in the game are baffling.
So in the end, I come away with mixed feelings. Without question, Final Fantasy X is the only FF I really enjoyed playing. The challenging enemies, wealth of strategic combat options, and sphere puzzles all make X stand out from its generic predecessors. But the constant interruptions via cutscenes, poor equipment management, and ridiculously cheap game-overs are absolutely infuriating. Still, I'd much rather play another FFX than another FF I-IX, which says a lot about FFX's progress. Or maybe it says a lot about the others' lack-of.
Role Playing Game - Playstation 2
Memory Card - 99 saves
1 player
Final Fantasy and I don't go well together. The first one was great, and actually got me interested in the genre after the original Dragon Warrior bored me to tears. Then I noticed that as I completed IV, V, VI, and IX, not a whole lot had changed. Yes, Square added ATB, job systems, weapon/item customization, melodrama and awful minigames. But they were all built on the same type of basic structure that the original followed. It had the same repetitive, brainless fights it always did. The extent of strategic depth was limited primarily to casting LIT on a water enemy. While other developers were making strides, FF remained essentially faithful to its simple roots. Given that history, I wasn't looking forward to playing FFX at all. Well. Color me surprised.
Final Fantasy X is Square's most progressive FF yet. As far as the actual fights themselves, there's a bunch of new systems. The first is that ATB is out, and a new graphical representation of turns is on display, a la Grandia. It definitely helps in planning out a strategy, because it will show you how many turns you have until an enemy gets a turn. It will also show you the effects on turn order if you use agility effects. In addition, you can swap party members in and out mid-turn. What this means is that if your party member is low on hp, you can swap in a fresh character. More significant than the systems themselves is that Square actually built the entire game around these systems. There are basically six types of attacks you can do - physical, fire, water, lightning, ice, and non-elemental magic. Every single enemy in the game has strengths and weaknesses. For example, one enemy may be weak in fire, but ice heals them, water does 0 damage, lightning does 1/2 damage, physical does normal damage. Every enemy is unique. Equipped items or spells will allow you to see these strengths/weaknesses. Because of this entirely new concept, you will be switching characters in and out, as well as switching weapons and armor mid-battle to maximize your opportunities. You absolutely cannot play FFX with just "Fight", like you could in previous FFs. To also facilitate this strengths/weaknesses concept, you will find stations in towns that will teach you about some of the monsters in the areas. The last thing you want to do is it be face-to-face with a new monster, with no idea what tricks they have up their sleeves. This is a FF where you can easily die, as a lot of monsters have special attacks and counterattacks. Boss battles are also far more interesting than FFs of old. Sometimes bosses will have different body parts, like Grandia, and will do devastating combos if those body parts are allowed to go in sequence. Other times, you will have special options called Trigger commands, that incorporate positioning. It reminds me a lot of Panzer Dragoon Saga in that regard. It's as if Square FINALLY realized how to make combat fun.
A lot of mention usually goes to its Sphere Grid system. When you level up, you don't necessarily gain any stats or skills. A level up merely gives you some traveling power on the grid. Think of it as a boardgame, with multibranching paths. Each character starts in a certain part of the grid that leads to their "natural" path, ie. Yuuna's section has stats and spells that are beneficial for a white mage. But there are junctures where you can leave that path. The advantage of the Sphere Grid is that it allows you to customize a character to your liking. But if you wander around aimlessly, your character could be pretty disadvantaged vs a dedicated path.
Outside of game systems, there's some pretty cool stuff as well. FFX features some of the best puzzles I've encountered in a traditional jRPG. Most of them involve taking a sphere here, inserting it there, push a stone tablet over there, and experimenting with all these things to unlock doors. The best part is they designed these puzzle sequences without any enemies to disrupt you. They are pretty challenging in of themselves, so it's better that they're focused experiences. I also enjoy the attention to detail throughout the game. Townsfolk will walk around, sit down, get back up, and walk in a different direction. The spontaneous behavior of the people brings about a sort of realism and livelihood to the towns. There is a foreign people in the game world, and the way FFX handles their foreign language and your learning of it is really cool too. FFX is also the first FF to feature voice, and there's lots of it. It is somewhat controversial, but I really like its addition. It accentuates dramatic scenes, and makes comedic scenes funnier, infamous laughing scene excluded. But a huge irritation for me is that character lips are not synched with the voice. It causes a disconnect, and I played the game in its original language! It's an unfortunate oversight on Square's part, because they payed attention to other details in the game.
Still, for all that FFX did right, there are many aspects of the game that are worst-in-series. I understand that Final Fantasy has been striving to be the de facto cinematic RPG out there. But FFX really goes overboard. For instance, the first 10 or so hours of the game, you play very little of it. It's all walk here, 5 minute cutscene, walk there 2 minute cutscene, fight a 1 minute battle, watch a 10 minute cutscene. That sort of pretentious crap pissed me off in Kojima games, but FFX is even worse. One time, the game shifted to a cutscene where a character said 2 lines of dialog. Then it switched back to the overworld. Not every piece of dialog deserves its own cutscene, Square. It's like they finally make a FF that's fun to play, but they won't let you play it. It does get better in that regard, but FFX is still saturated with cutscenes overall.
Even though I really like the battle engine, there are some poor design flaws. First of all, unless a party member performs an action in battle, they will not receive exp. So what that means is that you will be trying to fight each enemy, rotating your 7 members in and out so that they can all share the experience. It doesn't make the game any more fun or challenging - simply tedious. But most frustrating of all are the cheap deaths. Sometimes an enemy will ambush you, get first strike, do a special attack that immobilizes all your party members, and then it's game over before you can perform a single action. Once again, this doesn't mean the game is hard. It means it's cheap. If you don't have the right party members or equipment when a battle starts, you could be caught in that situation. Even if you have the right equipment, many defensive options only increase your chances of resisting those attacks but do not guarantee it. So you can still be in a no-opportunity, insta-death situation even if you have proper equipment. It has pissed me off on more than a few occasions, causing me to shelf the game for a time.
Finally, there are some general game problems that also detract from the experience. For one, equipment management is awful. Imagine you can hold up to 200 weapons/armor. The list fills up in the order you obtain them (via purchase, discovery, or enemy drops). There is no auto-sort, but you can manually sort if you'd like. Now imagine you've picked up your 201'st piece of equipment. Do you keep it? Well. First you look at what the weapon offers. Then you look through your list, scrolling down 200 entries to see if the weapon you picked up is better or not than what you have. Now repeat that every time you pick up another piece of equipment. Or what about selling items? How do you know which piece of equipment is crappy enough that you wanna get rid of it? Same thing. Is weapon #25 better than 26-200? You have to manually scroll back and forth through the list to compare your items. It's horribly implemented to the point where I would spend an hour of my time every now and then to manually sort all the items to group them by character. The game is also broken in its customization. You can fuse abilities to weapons/armor, and the summon creatures at the cost of certain items. Problem is... those items are generally only obtainable via Rikku's Steal command or Bribe. If you use Steal, you can only get 1-2 items per fight. Most of the items, especially rare ones, are a lot more accessible via the Bribe command. But even at the very end of the game, to bribe a single enemy, I would lose my entire savings built up in the last 60 hours. It is utterly ridiculous. Oh, there are ways of farming lots of money, by perhaps bribing the right monster and selling the proceeds to bribe some more. But unless you cheat and use a FAQ, no sane person is going to use all their money to bribe a random enemy, get the proceeds and then see if they're worth it to use/sell, document it, then reset the game, reload from save, and repeat for the 500 types of enemies in the game. (I tried it a couple times and then promptly gave up.) The design decisions in the game are baffling.
So in the end, I come away with mixed feelings. Without question, Final Fantasy X is the only FF I really enjoyed playing. The challenging enemies, wealth of strategic combat options, and sphere puzzles all make X stand out from its generic predecessors. But the constant interruptions via cutscenes, poor equipment management, and ridiculously cheap game-overs are absolutely infuriating. Still, I'd much rather play another FFX than another FF I-IX, which says a lot about FFX's progress. Or maybe it says a lot about the others' lack-of.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Guitar Hero On Tour
Guitar Hero On Tour
Rhythm - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup - 3 saves
1 player / 2 player WLAN
With the widespread success of Guitar Hero and Rock Band in the US, it was only a matter of time before someone set their sights on the portable market. Activision & Vicarious Visions became that someone. And the DS became their platform of choice. The story goes that Guitar Hero On Tour was an experiment for Activision. Would they be able to reproduce the console experience on a portable? I'd say: very little. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.
First of all, Guitar Hero On Tour comes with a Guitar Grip that fits in the GBA slot. By default, it fits the DSlite, but the package also comes with a converter for DSfat owners like me. The guitar grip is designed to mimic pressing fingers on the fret buttons a la the console guitar controllers, and aside from dropping the 5th button, it works really well. Tactile feel of the buttons is good. The grip also comes with an adjustable velcro strap for your hand, so you can simultaneously hold the DS and play notes at the same time. Although the guitar grip controller allows you to play notes as intuitively as the console versions, there is a major problem. Ergonomics are a sour point. Up until you find a hand position that works comfortably, you will likely be in a lot of pain. Between the fast fingerwork required to play higher level songs, supporting the weight of the DS on the same hand, and angling the DS so that you can actually see the note charts, the game puts a lot of stress on your weaker hand. Immediately after a couple of songs, I felt sharp pains shooting through my left wrist. It's a system of trial and error to find a playable position, and that's a big let down on a game like this.
But things aren't all wrong. The biggest selling point for me was that the game also comes with a pick-stylus. Since the DS has a touchscreen, it's only natural that they utilize it. With a pick in hand, it feels more like real strumming than that silly guitar controller flap. Just stroke the touchscreen with the pick left or right, and it plays the notes you've fingered. It's intuitive and has the right sensitivity. To use the whammy bar for long notes, you simply slide the pick left and right rapidly. Your touchscreen might not like the scratches, but it sure does feel natural. And when you're not using the pick, you just slide it into the guitar grip, where it has its own storage space. It's details like that where you realize that Activision and VV were serious about making a quality product.
The audio and visuals are also very high quality. The game contains 25 songs, and the bulk of them are exclusive to On Tour. The songs are a mix of genres, from Pat Benatar to Nirvana to Santana - mostly from the last decade though. As expected, many of the songs are covers, but I was surprised to hear Maroon 5 blasting from the speakers fully intact. The game sports four difficulties, with Easy being for the truly rhythmless, and Expert for ... well... experts. The song pattens I've gone through in Normal and Hard have been pretty fun, and are pretty much in line with all other RedOctane/Harmonix releases. No complaints there.
The game also offers 2 player modes, assuming you have a friend with the guitar grip. There's competitive play, where you can actually attack your opponent with DS specific options... and the normal co-op from the console versions. I don't know anyone with the game, so I did not get a chance to test out these features.
If the goal of the game is to simply duplicate the feeling of left hand/fret buttons - right hand/strum to rhythm and music, On Tour is a decent attempt. The addition of the pick/touchscreen for the DS actually makes it better than the console versions for the strumming experience. But if the goal of the game is to feel like a guitar player, On Tour falls completely short. Having to balance the DS with your palm while frantically hitting buttons with fingers from the same hand is not the challenge Activision aimed for. In addition, even though Star Power can be activated in three different ways, all the methods interrupt the flow of rocking out, versus the guitar lift in the console versions. Make no mistake. Guitar Hero On Tour is a unique and fun rhythm game that takes full advantage of the DS' capabilities. But it does not at all emulate the feel of performing. For me, it doesn't have to. The cool guitar grip peripheral and being able to strum are reasons enough to warrant its existence. It's a Guitar Hero that offers not a lesser, but a different experience altogether than any of its console counterparts.
Rhythm - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup - 3 saves
1 player / 2 player WLAN
With the widespread success of Guitar Hero and Rock Band in the US, it was only a matter of time before someone set their sights on the portable market. Activision & Vicarious Visions became that someone. And the DS became their platform of choice. The story goes that Guitar Hero On Tour was an experiment for Activision. Would they be able to reproduce the console experience on a portable? I'd say: very little. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.
First of all, Guitar Hero On Tour comes with a Guitar Grip that fits in the GBA slot. By default, it fits the DSlite, but the package also comes with a converter for DSfat owners like me. The guitar grip is designed to mimic pressing fingers on the fret buttons a la the console guitar controllers, and aside from dropping the 5th button, it works really well. Tactile feel of the buttons is good. The grip also comes with an adjustable velcro strap for your hand, so you can simultaneously hold the DS and play notes at the same time. Although the guitar grip controller allows you to play notes as intuitively as the console versions, there is a major problem. Ergonomics are a sour point. Up until you find a hand position that works comfortably, you will likely be in a lot of pain. Between the fast fingerwork required to play higher level songs, supporting the weight of the DS on the same hand, and angling the DS so that you can actually see the note charts, the game puts a lot of stress on your weaker hand. Immediately after a couple of songs, I felt sharp pains shooting through my left wrist. It's a system of trial and error to find a playable position, and that's a big let down on a game like this.
But things aren't all wrong. The biggest selling point for me was that the game also comes with a pick-stylus. Since the DS has a touchscreen, it's only natural that they utilize it. With a pick in hand, it feels more like real strumming than that silly guitar controller flap. Just stroke the touchscreen with the pick left or right, and it plays the notes you've fingered. It's intuitive and has the right sensitivity. To use the whammy bar for long notes, you simply slide the pick left and right rapidly. Your touchscreen might not like the scratches, but it sure does feel natural. And when you're not using the pick, you just slide it into the guitar grip, where it has its own storage space. It's details like that where you realize that Activision and VV were serious about making a quality product.
The audio and visuals are also very high quality. The game contains 25 songs, and the bulk of them are exclusive to On Tour. The songs are a mix of genres, from Pat Benatar to Nirvana to Santana - mostly from the last decade though. As expected, many of the songs are covers, but I was surprised to hear Maroon 5 blasting from the speakers fully intact. The game sports four difficulties, with Easy being for the truly rhythmless, and Expert for ... well... experts. The song pattens I've gone through in Normal and Hard have been pretty fun, and are pretty much in line with all other RedOctane/Harmonix releases. No complaints there.
The game also offers 2 player modes, assuming you have a friend with the guitar grip. There's competitive play, where you can actually attack your opponent with DS specific options... and the normal co-op from the console versions. I don't know anyone with the game, so I did not get a chance to test out these features.
If the goal of the game is to simply duplicate the feeling of left hand/fret buttons - right hand/strum to rhythm and music, On Tour is a decent attempt. The addition of the pick/touchscreen for the DS actually makes it better than the console versions for the strumming experience. But if the goal of the game is to feel like a guitar player, On Tour falls completely short. Having to balance the DS with your palm while frantically hitting buttons with fingers from the same hand is not the challenge Activision aimed for. In addition, even though Star Power can be activated in three different ways, all the methods interrupt the flow of rocking out, versus the guitar lift in the console versions. Make no mistake. Guitar Hero On Tour is a unique and fun rhythm game that takes full advantage of the DS' capabilities. But it does not at all emulate the feel of performing. For me, it doesn't have to. The cool guitar grip peripheral and being able to strum are reasons enough to warrant its existence. It's a Guitar Hero that offers not a lesser, but a different experience altogether than any of its console counterparts.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Yggdra Union
Yggdra Union
SRPG - Gameboy Advance
Battery Backup - 3 saves, 1 quicksave
1 player
Developer Sting is one to look out for. The last time they made a game, they created a different interpretation than others in its class. Riviera was that game. And what Riviera did for RPGs, Yggdra Union aims to do with SRPGs.
Like other SRPGs, Yggdra Union has many of the same basics. There's grid movement, the usual rock-paper-scissors unit types (knights, archers, mages, swordsmen, axemen, etc), and stat progression via experience points. In most turn-based combat, a viable strategy is to attack an opponent with multiple units. While the units trade blows, the assumed end result is that the opponent's health is chipped away until one of your units finally kills them. Not so in Yggdra Union. The entire philosophy of combat is completely changed in this title. Here, each turn consists of one or more fights. To damage an opponent, you have to win that fight. That means that in the typical 6-vs-6 fight, if you kill 4 of their soldiers, and they kill all 6 of yours, you are the only one to lose health (morale in Yggdra). It also means that if you attack that enemy on a subsequent turn, you face another 6-vs-6 fight. With this battle system philosophy in place, you should ONLY attack an enemy if you know you will win. Simply throwing all your units at an enemy usually won't work. That means that you absolutely need to take every opportunity to gain an advantage - terrain bonuses, weapon affinity bonuses, aggressive attacks, and card powers.
Wait, card powers? Nope, it's not what you think. There are cards in the game, but there's no deck, and no randomness in drawing cards. Instead, the cards serve 4 purposes:
1. They determine your number of turns. Before each scenario, the game will tell you to choose 4 or 12 or 14 or however many cards Sting thought you would need for the stage. When the battle begins, you choose a card each turn. Once you use that card, you can't use it for the rest of the battle (unless it's a multi-part battle).
2. They determine your movement for the turn. Each card has a number on it indicating how many boxes your units can move on a grid. Some of the more powerful cards allow up to movement 12, which you can split among any or all of your units.
3. They determine your attack power. Each card has another number indicating how well you'll fight with the card and how much morale damage inflicted. This number increases as you win fights.
4. Finally, each card has an ability associated with it. Some of these cards are good in the right context, ie elemental magic, but others are tide-shifters. Use them correctly, and you can turn your attack that was sure to lose, into a win.
This interesting card system is only the beginning of Sting's bag of tricks. Not only are you allowed one card per turn, but you're only allowed one attack per turn. That's where the concept of "unions" come in. If you arrange your squad into specific shapes with respect to your attacker, they form a union and attack the enemy together. Each unit in the union will face off sequentially against the enemy. If the enemy is isolated, they will experience "battle fatigue" and will start each subsequent battle with one less unit. That means if you have a 5-unit union vs 1 enemy, the first fight will be 6-vs-6, the second 6-vs-5, and so on until the fifth fight you will be battling 6-vs-2. Manage your formation units well, and you can easily stack the odds in your favor. But be aware that the enemy can form unions too. Therein lies the core mechanic of the game. Since each stage has a limited number of turns, you have to make the most of your opportunities. Attacking with unions is the quickest way to progress through a scenario, but sometimes it's better to fight as smaller unions or individual units if you risk losing a fight, and hence unit morale. The choice of strategy is up to you.
The last thing to mention are the battles themselves. Once you enter a fight, as I mentioned earlier, usually it's 6 soldiers against 6 enemy soldiers. The fight takes place in real-time, and without any input, they will play out mathematically based on weapon affinities (sword > axe > spears), unit attack strength, land bonuses, etc. It's sort of like Dragon Force's 100-vs-100 battles. But even as you watch the fights play out, you have quite a bit of interaction in the form of an aggression meter. If you drain your aggression meter, your unit will inflict more damage than normal for as long as you drain it. If your unit has any elemental bonuses (ie fire damage), they will added in. If you charge your aggression meter, your unit will be more passive and hence weaker than normal. In addition to charging the meter to go aggro later, if you charge your meter to 100%, you can use your card's ability. Both aggressive tactics and using card abilities can sway the fight in your favor, so interaction with the aggression meter is a huge role. The enemy has a Rage meter that acts in a similar fashion.
That's the entire battle engine in a nutshell. There's so many different elements to it that it's hard to be concise, but it comes together quite nicely. Yggdra Union also has a little bit of interaction outside of the battles too. On each battlefield, there's a grid of possible locations. Sometimes if you stop on a particular square, you'll find a hidden item. Items are also very important because they can boost your unit stats and grant additional abilities. Alternatively, they can be used to heal morale of your units. Units can only equip one item at a time, and items only last for 1 to 3 stages. So item management is a critical planning aspect of the game. That's not all. The battlefield will also contain towns and castles. Sometimes, depending on the character, what items you have in possession, and what time of the day it is, you can obtain items from townsfolk by landing on these icons. Some will give you items freely, while others will only give you an item in exchange for another. Because all of these item discoveries are hidden, they're either a pleasant surprise or a completionist's worst nightmare. In addition, items can also drop from defeated enemies, or can be stolen during battle.
I absolutely love that Sting consistently tries out new ideas. Although the elements vary in their degrees of success, you have to commend a company that will not succumb to laziness and status quo. Here in Yggdra Union, the game systems are actually quite innovative and well implemented. The game is difficult, and - unless you utilize the wealth of items, weapon and elemental affinities, terrain, the aggression meter and card powers, basically everything available to you - Game Overs are not uncommon. That's quite a fresh breath of air compared to the stale "surround and pound" tactics of other SRPGs. There definitely are some design flaws here and there : the in-game tutorial is inadequate, causing confusion early-on; there are no help menus like Riviera; you cannot view enemy units prior to choosing your characters for a stage; battle conditions will change without warning ie. sudden appearance of enemy back-up; questionable pacing; the script has typos and is a bit hokey despite its serious content. But these things do not diminish what Sting has accomplished. Yggdra Union dares to shove past its stagnant peers. It's totally my type of game.
SRPG - Gameboy Advance
Battery Backup - 3 saves, 1 quicksave
1 player
Developer Sting is one to look out for. The last time they made a game, they created a different interpretation than others in its class. Riviera was that game. And what Riviera did for RPGs, Yggdra Union aims to do with SRPGs.
Like other SRPGs, Yggdra Union has many of the same basics. There's grid movement, the usual rock-paper-scissors unit types (knights, archers, mages, swordsmen, axemen, etc), and stat progression via experience points. In most turn-based combat, a viable strategy is to attack an opponent with multiple units. While the units trade blows, the assumed end result is that the opponent's health is chipped away until one of your units finally kills them. Not so in Yggdra Union. The entire philosophy of combat is completely changed in this title. Here, each turn consists of one or more fights. To damage an opponent, you have to win that fight. That means that in the typical 6-vs-6 fight, if you kill 4 of their soldiers, and they kill all 6 of yours, you are the only one to lose health (morale in Yggdra). It also means that if you attack that enemy on a subsequent turn, you face another 6-vs-6 fight. With this battle system philosophy in place, you should ONLY attack an enemy if you know you will win. Simply throwing all your units at an enemy usually won't work. That means that you absolutely need to take every opportunity to gain an advantage - terrain bonuses, weapon affinity bonuses, aggressive attacks, and card powers.
Wait, card powers? Nope, it's not what you think. There are cards in the game, but there's no deck, and no randomness in drawing cards. Instead, the cards serve 4 purposes:
1. They determine your number of turns. Before each scenario, the game will tell you to choose 4 or 12 or 14 or however many cards Sting thought you would need for the stage. When the battle begins, you choose a card each turn. Once you use that card, you can't use it for the rest of the battle (unless it's a multi-part battle).
2. They determine your movement for the turn. Each card has a number on it indicating how many boxes your units can move on a grid. Some of the more powerful cards allow up to movement 12, which you can split among any or all of your units.
3. They determine your attack power. Each card has another number indicating how well you'll fight with the card and how much morale damage inflicted. This number increases as you win fights.
4. Finally, each card has an ability associated with it. Some of these cards are good in the right context, ie elemental magic, but others are tide-shifters. Use them correctly, and you can turn your attack that was sure to lose, into a win.
This interesting card system is only the beginning of Sting's bag of tricks. Not only are you allowed one card per turn, but you're only allowed one attack per turn. That's where the concept of "unions" come in. If you arrange your squad into specific shapes with respect to your attacker, they form a union and attack the enemy together. Each unit in the union will face off sequentially against the enemy. If the enemy is isolated, they will experience "battle fatigue" and will start each subsequent battle with one less unit. That means if you have a 5-unit union vs 1 enemy, the first fight will be 6-vs-6, the second 6-vs-5, and so on until the fifth fight you will be battling 6-vs-2. Manage your formation units well, and you can easily stack the odds in your favor. But be aware that the enemy can form unions too. Therein lies the core mechanic of the game. Since each stage has a limited number of turns, you have to make the most of your opportunities. Attacking with unions is the quickest way to progress through a scenario, but sometimes it's better to fight as smaller unions or individual units if you risk losing a fight, and hence unit morale. The choice of strategy is up to you.
The last thing to mention are the battles themselves. Once you enter a fight, as I mentioned earlier, usually it's 6 soldiers against 6 enemy soldiers. The fight takes place in real-time, and without any input, they will play out mathematically based on weapon affinities (sword > axe > spears), unit attack strength, land bonuses, etc. It's sort of like Dragon Force's 100-vs-100 battles. But even as you watch the fights play out, you have quite a bit of interaction in the form of an aggression meter. If you drain your aggression meter, your unit will inflict more damage than normal for as long as you drain it. If your unit has any elemental bonuses (ie fire damage), they will added in. If you charge your aggression meter, your unit will be more passive and hence weaker than normal. In addition to charging the meter to go aggro later, if you charge your meter to 100%, you can use your card's ability. Both aggressive tactics and using card abilities can sway the fight in your favor, so interaction with the aggression meter is a huge role. The enemy has a Rage meter that acts in a similar fashion.
That's the entire battle engine in a nutshell. There's so many different elements to it that it's hard to be concise, but it comes together quite nicely. Yggdra Union also has a little bit of interaction outside of the battles too. On each battlefield, there's a grid of possible locations. Sometimes if you stop on a particular square, you'll find a hidden item. Items are also very important because they can boost your unit stats and grant additional abilities. Alternatively, they can be used to heal morale of your units. Units can only equip one item at a time, and items only last for 1 to 3 stages. So item management is a critical planning aspect of the game. That's not all. The battlefield will also contain towns and castles. Sometimes, depending on the character, what items you have in possession, and what time of the day it is, you can obtain items from townsfolk by landing on these icons. Some will give you items freely, while others will only give you an item in exchange for another. Because all of these item discoveries are hidden, they're either a pleasant surprise or a completionist's worst nightmare. In addition, items can also drop from defeated enemies, or can be stolen during battle.
I absolutely love that Sting consistently tries out new ideas. Although the elements vary in their degrees of success, you have to commend a company that will not succumb to laziness and status quo. Here in Yggdra Union, the game systems are actually quite innovative and well implemented. The game is difficult, and - unless you utilize the wealth of items, weapon and elemental affinities, terrain, the aggression meter and card powers, basically everything available to you - Game Overs are not uncommon. That's quite a fresh breath of air compared to the stale "surround and pound" tactics of other SRPGs. There definitely are some design flaws here and there : the in-game tutorial is inadequate, causing confusion early-on; there are no help menus like Riviera; you cannot view enemy units prior to choosing your characters for a stage; battle conditions will change without warning ie. sudden appearance of enemy back-up; questionable pacing; the script has typos and is a bit hokey despite its serious content. But these things do not diminish what Sting has accomplished. Yggdra Union dares to shove past its stagnant peers. It's totally my type of game.
Friday, June 06, 2008
Grandia Xtreme
Grandia Xtreme
RPG - PS2
Memory Card - 8 save slots
1 player
Do you ever get the feeling that some games were made just for you? The art, the characterization, the gameplay - everything about it seems perfect. Grandia was that game. And Grandia this is not.
Although this is the third game, they chose not to call this Grandia III. If you came expecting it to follow the same conventions as the main series, you'd be in for a shock. What we have here is a blend of RPG and dungeon crawler. Sadly, many of the things I liked about the Grandia series are removed. There is a bare-bones story to give GX a framework. It's hardly as ambitious as the other Grandias, but it's workable. What is a loss is the lack of characterization. There are 8 characters this time, and none of them are ever fleshed out. You never really end up caring for their causes. Grandia has always been character-driven, but Xtreme de-emphasizes that. Grandia also sported really nice locales - dungeons & towns had very unique and imaginative designs. I always looked forward to finding the next place to go because the locations were so creative. In GX, there is a total of two towns. Two. But one of them doesn't even have shops. That's where the dungeon crawler aspects intrude on my enjoyment.
Everything centers on a single town. There you have the only shops and the only save point in the game. Think about that for a moment. That means that even if you've been in a dungeon for two hours (which is minimal for GX), you cannot save your progress until you head back to town. There is no quicksave offered. This is probably GameArts/Enix's idea of pushing the survival aspect of the game. But it ends up being impractical. A quicksave wouldn't compromise their vision of difficulty, but it would make GX a lot more playable. Instead, they limit sessions only to those times where you can dedicate 3 hour blocks to it.
Their attempt to alleviate this is pretty irritating. Scattered throughout dungeons are Geo Points that allow your party to warp back to town. Some Geo Points allow only a one way trip. Others allow you to go back to town, and then warp back. The problem is, everytime you re-enter a dungeon via Geo Point or otherwise, all the enemies respawn. So using the Geo Point allows you to save. But the penalty is you have to wade through another hour or so of fighting again. There are no Geo Points right before a boss.
Ultimately this type of design drags down Grandia's greatest selling point - its battle engine. First, the good. Xtreme has the most sophisticated iteration of it yet. It's still as strategic as the previous entries, where everything plays out in semi-real time. The action pauses everytime it's a party-members turn, but timing and position heavily influence your attack effectiveness. Some interesting changes are all related to your SP attacks. In previous Grandias, everytime you enter a dungeon, you would get HP, MP, and SP. In Xtreme, your SP starts at 0 every time you enter a dungeon. But it builds up with time, and also whenever you hit or get hit. This is nice because it allows you to use your SP attacks frequently, and believe me, you'll need it. In addition to the way it builds up, you're also able to do combination SP attacks. Similar to Chrono Trigger, there are double SP attacks and triple SP attacks. Once you initiate the attack, it needs to wait until all members involved in the attack are ready (ie all members have to have their turn available) before it executes. And finally, you learn SP attacks mid-battle. When you use your SP attacks, you build levels for that attack. When you hit a certain threshold, you'll execute (and thus learn) a new attack. You'll be fighting an enemy and executing an attack in your arsenal, and then suddenly, you'll be doing something completely new and usually more powerful. It's a pleasant surprise, and you'll be able to use the special attack thereafter.
Xtreme also takes skills and mana eggs to the next level. Similar to Final Fantasy IX, you need to equip skills in order to build their levels. Skills range from getting attack bonuses toward certain creatures, to boosting your agility rating to being able to counterattack when hit. Skills play a critical role and can decide life and death. In GX, enemies actually drop skill scrolls, so they are plentiful. The key is in leveling up those skills so that they can be useful. On the magic side, I really did not like how mana eggs were simplified in Grandia II. Luckily, Grandia Xtreme is a step in the right direction. Just like skills, mana eggs are relatively plentiful. But instead of leveling the eggs through fights, eggs are leveled by fusion. Mix a Level 1 Stone Egg with a Level 1 Fire Egg and you create a Level 2 Burst Egg. Mix a Level 2 Burst Egg with a Level 1 Fire Egg and you create a Level 3 Bomb Egg. Each type of egg has its own set of spells, so you may want to keep a lower level egg around for what it can cast. When you fuse eggs, sometimes you get random bonuses such as 1/2 casting cost, extra damage, etc. Conveniently, the game keeps a log of what types of eggs are required to make other eggs.
But as great as these systems are in improving Grandia's gameplay, it's the overall design decisions that bog the game down. There will be times where you will need to leave the dungeon in order to save. And as I said, all the enemies respawn when you go back to where you left off. So you're constantly fighting over and over again. To make matters worse, some bosses are unfair in that if you have the right equipment, you'll do fine. But if you don't, you'll only last a couple of turns. You'll probably know what to do the next time, but that means going through the dungeon again (or Geo Point, if you saved) and fighting an hour or three's worth of battles again.
To top it all off is what I believe to be the game-breaking flaw. Consider this: You can choose your party. Evann has to stay constant, but you can choose 3 of the remaining 8. In certain parts of the story, you are forced to use certain characters. But characters that are not in your party do not gain experience. So if you want to keep your party balanced, you have to go back to town and keep switching characters. If that wasn't bad enough, the enemies are scaled to be at a level around your highest party member. Since Evann is always in your party, he is easily 10 levels above your other party members. That means that although he can fight normal enemies ok, your other members are struggling. Some of them can only hit enemies for 1 point of damage. Sure it keeps the game challenging at all times, but battles end up taking a long time to fight. But when you consider that bosses can also slaughter your underleveled party members, it forces you to level grind. But wait, even the weakest enemies take 5 minutes to fight, and give you minimal experience... and if you eventually level your underpowered members, Evann ends up leveling in the midst of it as well, which makes the enemies more powerful and the whole cycle repeats. Absolutely tedious.
And that's what Grandia Xtreme is. It turned what would otherwise be a great system against the player. Consider this: I've owned Grandia Xtreme since its Japanese launch date. That's 6.5 years before I could finish it. The boredom of going through the same dungeons over and over, as well as the irritation of fighting the same enemies over and over drove me absolutely mad. Many have wondered if Grandia could stand alone on its fun battle mechanics. Grandia Xtreme proves that it cannot.
RPG - PS2
Memory Card - 8 save slots
1 player
Do you ever get the feeling that some games were made just for you? The art, the characterization, the gameplay - everything about it seems perfect. Grandia was that game. And Grandia this is not.
Although this is the third game, they chose not to call this Grandia III. If you came expecting it to follow the same conventions as the main series, you'd be in for a shock. What we have here is a blend of RPG and dungeon crawler. Sadly, many of the things I liked about the Grandia series are removed. There is a bare-bones story to give GX a framework. It's hardly as ambitious as the other Grandias, but it's workable. What is a loss is the lack of characterization. There are 8 characters this time, and none of them are ever fleshed out. You never really end up caring for their causes. Grandia has always been character-driven, but Xtreme de-emphasizes that. Grandia also sported really nice locales - dungeons & towns had very unique and imaginative designs. I always looked forward to finding the next place to go because the locations were so creative. In GX, there is a total of two towns. Two. But one of them doesn't even have shops. That's where the dungeon crawler aspects intrude on my enjoyment.
Everything centers on a single town. There you have the only shops and the only save point in the game. Think about that for a moment. That means that even if you've been in a dungeon for two hours (which is minimal for GX), you cannot save your progress until you head back to town. There is no quicksave offered. This is probably GameArts/Enix's idea of pushing the survival aspect of the game. But it ends up being impractical. A quicksave wouldn't compromise their vision of difficulty, but it would make GX a lot more playable. Instead, they limit sessions only to those times where you can dedicate 3 hour blocks to it.
Their attempt to alleviate this is pretty irritating. Scattered throughout dungeons are Geo Points that allow your party to warp back to town. Some Geo Points allow only a one way trip. Others allow you to go back to town, and then warp back. The problem is, everytime you re-enter a dungeon via Geo Point or otherwise, all the enemies respawn. So using the Geo Point allows you to save. But the penalty is you have to wade through another hour or so of fighting again. There are no Geo Points right before a boss.
Ultimately this type of design drags down Grandia's greatest selling point - its battle engine. First, the good. Xtreme has the most sophisticated iteration of it yet. It's still as strategic as the previous entries, where everything plays out in semi-real time. The action pauses everytime it's a party-members turn, but timing and position heavily influence your attack effectiveness. Some interesting changes are all related to your SP attacks. In previous Grandias, everytime you enter a dungeon, you would get HP, MP, and SP. In Xtreme, your SP starts at 0 every time you enter a dungeon. But it builds up with time, and also whenever you hit or get hit. This is nice because it allows you to use your SP attacks frequently, and believe me, you'll need it. In addition to the way it builds up, you're also able to do combination SP attacks. Similar to Chrono Trigger, there are double SP attacks and triple SP attacks. Once you initiate the attack, it needs to wait until all members involved in the attack are ready (ie all members have to have their turn available) before it executes. And finally, you learn SP attacks mid-battle. When you use your SP attacks, you build levels for that attack. When you hit a certain threshold, you'll execute (and thus learn) a new attack. You'll be fighting an enemy and executing an attack in your arsenal, and then suddenly, you'll be doing something completely new and usually more powerful. It's a pleasant surprise, and you'll be able to use the special attack thereafter.
Xtreme also takes skills and mana eggs to the next level. Similar to Final Fantasy IX, you need to equip skills in order to build their levels. Skills range from getting attack bonuses toward certain creatures, to boosting your agility rating to being able to counterattack when hit. Skills play a critical role and can decide life and death. In GX, enemies actually drop skill scrolls, so they are plentiful. The key is in leveling up those skills so that they can be useful. On the magic side, I really did not like how mana eggs were simplified in Grandia II. Luckily, Grandia Xtreme is a step in the right direction. Just like skills, mana eggs are relatively plentiful. But instead of leveling the eggs through fights, eggs are leveled by fusion. Mix a Level 1 Stone Egg with a Level 1 Fire Egg and you create a Level 2 Burst Egg. Mix a Level 2 Burst Egg with a Level 1 Fire Egg and you create a Level 3 Bomb Egg. Each type of egg has its own set of spells, so you may want to keep a lower level egg around for what it can cast. When you fuse eggs, sometimes you get random bonuses such as 1/2 casting cost, extra damage, etc. Conveniently, the game keeps a log of what types of eggs are required to make other eggs.
But as great as these systems are in improving Grandia's gameplay, it's the overall design decisions that bog the game down. There will be times where you will need to leave the dungeon in order to save. And as I said, all the enemies respawn when you go back to where you left off. So you're constantly fighting over and over again. To make matters worse, some bosses are unfair in that if you have the right equipment, you'll do fine. But if you don't, you'll only last a couple of turns. You'll probably know what to do the next time, but that means going through the dungeon again (or Geo Point, if you saved) and fighting an hour or three's worth of battles again.
To top it all off is what I believe to be the game-breaking flaw. Consider this: You can choose your party. Evann has to stay constant, but you can choose 3 of the remaining 8. In certain parts of the story, you are forced to use certain characters. But characters that are not in your party do not gain experience. So if you want to keep your party balanced, you have to go back to town and keep switching characters. If that wasn't bad enough, the enemies are scaled to be at a level around your highest party member. Since Evann is always in your party, he is easily 10 levels above your other party members. That means that although he can fight normal enemies ok, your other members are struggling. Some of them can only hit enemies for 1 point of damage. Sure it keeps the game challenging at all times, but battles end up taking a long time to fight. But when you consider that bosses can also slaughter your underleveled party members, it forces you to level grind. But wait, even the weakest enemies take 5 minutes to fight, and give you minimal experience... and if you eventually level your underpowered members, Evann ends up leveling in the midst of it as well, which makes the enemies more powerful and the whole cycle repeats. Absolutely tedious.
And that's what Grandia Xtreme is. It turned what would otherwise be a great system against the player. Consider this: I've owned Grandia Xtreme since its Japanese launch date. That's 6.5 years before I could finish it. The boredom of going through the same dungeons over and over, as well as the irritation of fighting the same enemies over and over drove me absolutely mad. Many have wondered if Grandia could stand alone on its fun battle mechanics. Grandia Xtreme proves that it cannot.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Earth Defense Force 2
Simple 2000 Vol. 81: THE Chikyuu Boueigun 2
Action - Playstation 2
Memory Card - 8 slots
2 Players
As part of the SIMPLE 2000 Japanese budget game series, expectations are generally pretty low. But out of nowhere, THE Chikyuu Boueigun (Earth Defense Force/EDF) was released for the PS2, and gamers took notice. First thing you should know: It was developed by Sandlot, who also made Gigantic Drive/Robot Alchemic Drive for the PS2. Also, even if some aspects scream budget, it was a solid game through and through. EDF2 is its bigger and better sequel.
Imagine a massive alien invasion, hostile beings with an expansive mothership, huge hulking robotic machines, and a fleet of space ships that block out the sky. You are pretty much earth's last hope against swarms of incoming aliens. First choose a character, and then pick 2 weapons from an arsenal of 100+ to tackle its assortment of stages. The two characters available each come with their own set of weaponry. The captain is very straight forward, but choose the Pale Wing character, and her flying ability completely changes the way you play.
EDF2 is a pure blastathon. It's a 3rd person shooter with full directional movement. You can jump, roll, and shoot. And you can board vehicles if they're available. While that might sound simplistic, it actually works in the game's favor. The game overwhelms you with a horde of enemies on-screen. You'll be attacked from everywhich direction, to your side, from the back, and even from above. It's not uncommon for there to be 50+ enemies surrounding you. As you can imagine, the action is absolutely intense. While the beginning enemies die in 1-2 hits, later stages feature a flood of enemies that can absorb tons of damage. You need to experiment with the weapons you have, and use the terrain of the stage to make it through.
EDF2 is a game that rewards quick reflexes, precision in making the most of your shots, and strategy for survival.
But the game is hardly perfect. Being a budget title, it lacks visual polish and a great soundtrack. The biggest complaint heard is regarding the framerate. When the screen gets busy and action gets chaotic, the framerate slows to a crawl - sometimes even to 1 fps. The hardware just isn't able to handle everything that's going on. I would argue that it's part of EDF2's charm, because I've never played a game before that attempted to have enemies on this large of a scale. It's so ambitious that the framerate stutter is like a proud reminder. Still, there are some nagging problems. First, the default control is garbage. It is set to auto-aim, which handicaps the game a lot. Not only does it make playing less interactive, but not being able to choose who to shoot can be a game-ender. To alleviate that, you need to set your controls to Technical, where it will function more like a console FPS - one analog stick to move, the other to aim. Second, some of the other default settings are annoying too. Cut scenes are done in real time, but as the camera shifts to focus in on the action, your character is running around blind. It's fixable, via the option screen, but I question these design decisions. While these are seemingly minor, the biggest problem of the game was that it's too long. There are over 70 stages, and not all of them are good. Some stages are really monotonous and simply a repeat of stuff you did before. I would get bored and stop playing for weeks, sometimes months, before picking it back up. The erratic pacing definitely had an effect on my enthusiasm.
Still, what EDF2 does right always won me back. The stages themselves vary in location and objective. Sometimes you'll fight masses of enemies through hills and valleys. Other times, you'll be exploring narrow caves in search of an alien nest. You'll even get to duel against a Godzilla-alike in a crowded city! One neat aspect of the game is that pretty much everything can be destroyed. The skyscraper blocking your aim of the spider monster? Fire some grenades and level it. That bridge the enemies are walking across? Take it down with a rocket. Destruction is fun! But what I loved most of all about EDF2 is that it captures the feeling of an alien invasion. When you see a swarm of enemies all around, it paints a bleak picture, and leaves you terrified. When you see UFOs dropping bombs and wreaking havoc on towns as the citizens flee, there's a sensation of urgency. It is an epic battle for survival. Some of the scenes look like inspired by War of the Worlds. It's just everything you envision an alien invasion to be.
Earth Defense Force 2 is largely regarded as one of the must-have import titles for the PS2. Its fans obsessively praise it, and consider it a mindblowing experience. While I do not share the same enthusiasm (I'd weed out maybe half of the stages), EDF2 is not doubt a good game. There aren't too many third person shooters out there, much less ones that are worth playing. But EDF2 manages to carve a unique identity for itself, and creates a convincing atmosphere. The alien invasion action game is without equal. Did I mention 2 player co-op?
Action - Playstation 2
Memory Card - 8 slots
2 Players
As part of the SIMPLE 2000 Japanese budget game series, expectations are generally pretty low. But out of nowhere, THE Chikyuu Boueigun (Earth Defense Force/EDF) was released for the PS2, and gamers took notice. First thing you should know: It was developed by Sandlot, who also made Gigantic Drive/Robot Alchemic Drive for the PS2. Also, even if some aspects scream budget, it was a solid game through and through. EDF2 is its bigger and better sequel.
Imagine a massive alien invasion, hostile beings with an expansive mothership, huge hulking robotic machines, and a fleet of space ships that block out the sky. You are pretty much earth's last hope against swarms of incoming aliens. First choose a character, and then pick 2 weapons from an arsenal of 100+ to tackle its assortment of stages. The two characters available each come with their own set of weaponry. The captain is very straight forward, but choose the Pale Wing character, and her flying ability completely changes the way you play.
EDF2 is a pure blastathon. It's a 3rd person shooter with full directional movement. You can jump, roll, and shoot. And you can board vehicles if they're available. While that might sound simplistic, it actually works in the game's favor. The game overwhelms you with a horde of enemies on-screen. You'll be attacked from everywhich direction, to your side, from the back, and even from above. It's not uncommon for there to be 50+ enemies surrounding you. As you can imagine, the action is absolutely intense. While the beginning enemies die in 1-2 hits, later stages feature a flood of enemies that can absorb tons of damage. You need to experiment with the weapons you have, and use the terrain of the stage to make it through.
EDF2 is a game that rewards quick reflexes, precision in making the most of your shots, and strategy for survival.
But the game is hardly perfect. Being a budget title, it lacks visual polish and a great soundtrack. The biggest complaint heard is regarding the framerate. When the screen gets busy and action gets chaotic, the framerate slows to a crawl - sometimes even to 1 fps. The hardware just isn't able to handle everything that's going on. I would argue that it's part of EDF2's charm, because I've never played a game before that attempted to have enemies on this large of a scale. It's so ambitious that the framerate stutter is like a proud reminder. Still, there are some nagging problems. First, the default control is garbage. It is set to auto-aim, which handicaps the game a lot. Not only does it make playing less interactive, but not being able to choose who to shoot can be a game-ender. To alleviate that, you need to set your controls to Technical, where it will function more like a console FPS - one analog stick to move, the other to aim. Second, some of the other default settings are annoying too. Cut scenes are done in real time, but as the camera shifts to focus in on the action, your character is running around blind. It's fixable, via the option screen, but I question these design decisions. While these are seemingly minor, the biggest problem of the game was that it's too long. There are over 70 stages, and not all of them are good. Some stages are really monotonous and simply a repeat of stuff you did before. I would get bored and stop playing for weeks, sometimes months, before picking it back up. The erratic pacing definitely had an effect on my enthusiasm.
Still, what EDF2 does right always won me back. The stages themselves vary in location and objective. Sometimes you'll fight masses of enemies through hills and valleys. Other times, you'll be exploring narrow caves in search of an alien nest. You'll even get to duel against a Godzilla-alike in a crowded city! One neat aspect of the game is that pretty much everything can be destroyed. The skyscraper blocking your aim of the spider monster? Fire some grenades and level it. That bridge the enemies are walking across? Take it down with a rocket. Destruction is fun! But what I loved most of all about EDF2 is that it captures the feeling of an alien invasion. When you see a swarm of enemies all around, it paints a bleak picture, and leaves you terrified. When you see UFOs dropping bombs and wreaking havoc on towns as the citizens flee, there's a sensation of urgency. It is an epic battle for survival. Some of the scenes look like inspired by War of the Worlds. It's just everything you envision an alien invasion to be.
Earth Defense Force 2 is largely regarded as one of the must-have import titles for the PS2. Its fans obsessively praise it, and consider it a mindblowing experience. While I do not share the same enthusiasm (I'd weed out maybe half of the stages), EDF2 is not doubt a good game. There aren't too many third person shooters out there, much less ones that are worth playing. But EDF2 manages to carve a unique identity for itself, and creates a convincing atmosphere. The alien invasion action game is without equal. Did I mention 2 player co-op?
Friday, May 09, 2008
Professor Layton and the Curious Village
Professor Layton and the Curious Village
Puzzle Adventure - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup - 3 saves
1 player
Curious indeed. Known for its classy quasi-artstyle, Professor Layton is a stylus driven adventure game. The premise is that Professor Layton and his assistant are seeking the treasure of a wealthy Baron that has passed on. The Baron issued a public challenge offering the treasure to anyone who could find it. Thus the story begins.
Professor Layton and the Curious Village definitely plays like a traditional adventure game. You navigate through the different parts of town, talk to people and investigate items simply by poking at things with your stylus. But mostly, Layton is a puzzle game. The puzzles are very much what you might find in a brain teaser puzzle book. Among them, they'll test your knowledge of algebra, your spatial abilities, your logic, and even your reading comprehension. There's a bit of variety so it's hard to get bored. That all adds up to a game you can play for long stretches of time, or in short bursts depending on your mood. Since there's over 100 puzzles to rack your brains over, it'll last you a long time regardless.
Some of the nice touches that I enjoyed were some of the puzzle-y mini-games in addition to the normal puzzles you'll find. You'll be collecting items along the way, and even manipulating those items will be a puzzle in of themselves. Many of the puzzles are completely optional. For me, that just gave me more incentive to explore the city and talk to villagers to find them all. But in case you missed any, the game will archive them for you. The puzzles start out pretty easy, but quickly become challenging. Some are downright frustrating. Luckily, the game has a system where you can get up to 3 hints to solve a puzzle. During the exploration segments, you can discover coins to help you purchase these hints. Although the hints won't spell out the answer for you, they can be extremely helpful in determining a solution. The touchscreen itself is also quite an asset. For a lot of the puzzles, you can use your stylus as a "pencil" and write your notes on-screen. It acts very much like scratch paper. Unfortunately, I wish they had allowed that option on all the puzzles, but it is there on most of the math-y ones.
Although the puzzles are definitely a focal point, there are some cool things done for the adventure portions as well. In addition to the collectathon and exploration aspects, one thing that stood out for me was the animated FMV. Even though the DS and PSP are more than capable of doing FMV, I'm so used to seeing static images, so its inclusion is a pleasant surprise. There's a fair amount of animation here to progress the plot. With its unique art and fluid animation, it really complements the game's style very well, as does the British English voice acting. Plus, whenever you continue your game, the game will give you a "Story thus far..." recap of your present situation. There's a lot of nice touches like that.
If you couldn't tell, I found Professor Layton and the Curious Village an enjoyable romp. But despite my positive gushing, I couldn't help but think that Layton did not offer much that a brain teaser book couldn't. The fact that the DS touchscreen mimics scratch paper is a definite plus for gaming purposes, but if its best feature is to emulate 5th century practices, then perhaps all the tech isn't needed. Then again, if you enjoy the exploration offered by adventure games, Layton offers both worlds. And is far more polished than most.
Puzzle Adventure - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup - 3 saves
1 player
Curious indeed. Known for its classy quasi-artstyle, Professor Layton is a stylus driven adventure game. The premise is that Professor Layton and his assistant are seeking the treasure of a wealthy Baron that has passed on. The Baron issued a public challenge offering the treasure to anyone who could find it. Thus the story begins.
Professor Layton and the Curious Village definitely plays like a traditional adventure game. You navigate through the different parts of town, talk to people and investigate items simply by poking at things with your stylus. But mostly, Layton is a puzzle game. The puzzles are very much what you might find in a brain teaser puzzle book. Among them, they'll test your knowledge of algebra, your spatial abilities, your logic, and even your reading comprehension. There's a bit of variety so it's hard to get bored. That all adds up to a game you can play for long stretches of time, or in short bursts depending on your mood. Since there's over 100 puzzles to rack your brains over, it'll last you a long time regardless.
Some of the nice touches that I enjoyed were some of the puzzle-y mini-games in addition to the normal puzzles you'll find. You'll be collecting items along the way, and even manipulating those items will be a puzzle in of themselves. Many of the puzzles are completely optional. For me, that just gave me more incentive to explore the city and talk to villagers to find them all. But in case you missed any, the game will archive them for you. The puzzles start out pretty easy, but quickly become challenging. Some are downright frustrating. Luckily, the game has a system where you can get up to 3 hints to solve a puzzle. During the exploration segments, you can discover coins to help you purchase these hints. Although the hints won't spell out the answer for you, they can be extremely helpful in determining a solution. The touchscreen itself is also quite an asset. For a lot of the puzzles, you can use your stylus as a "pencil" and write your notes on-screen. It acts very much like scratch paper. Unfortunately, I wish they had allowed that option on all the puzzles, but it is there on most of the math-y ones.
Although the puzzles are definitely a focal point, there are some cool things done for the adventure portions as well. In addition to the collectathon and exploration aspects, one thing that stood out for me was the animated FMV. Even though the DS and PSP are more than capable of doing FMV, I'm so used to seeing static images, so its inclusion is a pleasant surprise. There's a fair amount of animation here to progress the plot. With its unique art and fluid animation, it really complements the game's style very well, as does the British English voice acting. Plus, whenever you continue your game, the game will give you a "Story thus far..." recap of your present situation. There's a lot of nice touches like that.
If you couldn't tell, I found Professor Layton and the Curious Village an enjoyable romp. But despite my positive gushing, I couldn't help but think that Layton did not offer much that a brain teaser book couldn't. The fact that the DS touchscreen mimics scratch paper is a definite plus for gaming purposes, but if its best feature is to emulate 5th century practices, then perhaps all the tech isn't needed. Then again, if you enjoy the exploration offered by adventure games, Layton offers both worlds. And is far more polished than most.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Ryu ga Gotoku
Ryu ga Gotoku
Action Adventure - Playstation 2
Memory Card - 8 Slots
1 player
SEGA doesn't have the greatest track record since going third party. But Ryu ga Gotoku ("Yakuza" in US) is widely regarded as a return to form. The development team consists of some former members of Smilebit. Comparisons have been drawn to Shenmue, Grand Theft Auto and even RPGs. While there are definitely elements of each, RgG is mostly an attempt at making an interactive Yakuza film.
To that end, SEGA has done a great job. Everything just oozes style, from the trash talking to the stylized character introductions. The story feels very much like what you would see in cinema, with themes of power, ambition, and loyalty. Even in the criminal underworld, there's a code of honor that they abide by. And it's all supported by great voice acting. The graphic violence further adds to the atmosphere. It's what a yakuza film should be like.
That's not all. The attention to detail is amazing. As you walk around town, the environment really looks and feels like Japan. Special attention goes to the background noise of endless chatter around you, pings and pongs of pachinko parlors, store radios, etc. It also replicates Japanese city life with its crowded and noisy busy streets contrasting the quiet, sleezy backroads. Playing RgG brings back memories of my visits to Tokyo. The attention to detail reminds me a lot of Grandia, although RgG is much more realistic. I love it.
Enough about the atmosphere. How does it play? The best way to describe it is Western RPG with beat'em up battles. See, most of the game takes place in a particular city. There, you have the freedom to walk around, trigger events, and start plenty of sub-quests. Since this game has a more adult edge, you can go to host clubs, strip clubs, and massage parlors. But you can also buy groceries, and eat at the local fast food burger joint. As you walk around, you'll get into random and not-so-random encounters with the local thugs. Surprisingly, the fighting is a lot deeper than I would have expected. I'm normally not one to like beat 'em ups, because of their button mashy nature. But in RgG, you're given a lot of freedom to move around, block, and even a timing-based counter system. These defensive options give the game a strategic edge. It's a fun system. What's also fun are the special moves. When your heat meter is full, you can pull off some cool attacks like face-stomping, slamming opponents against a wall or choking an enemy with a golf club. The neat thing is that many of these heat moves will be shown cinematic-style, with a close-up camera and slow-mo. My favorite move is slamming a bicycle on top of a downed opponent, bending the bike, and then jumping on top of the bike while it's still lying on the enemy. Mmm.
With all these positives, the game still manages to fall short of its promise. First of all, the difficulty is pretty unbalanced. In the beginning of the game, you welcome getting into fights because it's a source of income. But by mid-game, you have all the money you'll ever need. The fights themselves are also very unbalanced. While some of the fights will test your skill, most are pathetically easy. It doesn't necessarily get harder as you go along either. In many ways, it gets easier. That just makes it more infuriating as you try to complete the subquests, and BOOM. Encounter. Add in annoying and plentiful load times, and you'll find that combat gets old fast. Sometimes you'll have a 30 second load transition to the fight, a 10 second fight, and then another 15 second load transition back. Depending on where you go, you could be dragged into encounter after encounter. More load times. More easy button mashing. It's like a jRPG gone wrong.
Not only will you get to hate the meaningless fights, but city exploration will test your patience too. Because each "chapter" of the game is potential for new subquests, the gameplay consists of visiting and revisiting every nook and cranny of the city during each of your free roam sessions. How that's supposed to be fun, I'm not sure. It's just another one of those concepts that sounded cool in theory, but when you actually do it in play, isn't what it's cracked out to be.
Despite my complaints, Ryu ga Gotoku is hardly a bad game. If you want to take part in a yakuza film, SEGA has all the bases covered with great characters, a compelling storyline, and a convincing reproduction of Japanese city life. It also has a fun combat system with unexpected depth. But the game is marred by annoying RPG/adventure elements and an overall easy difficulty, that the combat engine is mostly wasted. As a cinematic experience, RgG is great. I simply would like more attention paid to the "game".
Action Adventure - Playstation 2
Memory Card - 8 Slots
1 player
SEGA doesn't have the greatest track record since going third party. But Ryu ga Gotoku ("Yakuza" in US) is widely regarded as a return to form. The development team consists of some former members of Smilebit. Comparisons have been drawn to Shenmue, Grand Theft Auto and even RPGs. While there are definitely elements of each, RgG is mostly an attempt at making an interactive Yakuza film.
To that end, SEGA has done a great job. Everything just oozes style, from the trash talking to the stylized character introductions. The story feels very much like what you would see in cinema, with themes of power, ambition, and loyalty. Even in the criminal underworld, there's a code of honor that they abide by. And it's all supported by great voice acting. The graphic violence further adds to the atmosphere. It's what a yakuza film should be like.
That's not all. The attention to detail is amazing. As you walk around town, the environment really looks and feels like Japan. Special attention goes to the background noise of endless chatter around you, pings and pongs of pachinko parlors, store radios, etc. It also replicates Japanese city life with its crowded and noisy busy streets contrasting the quiet, sleezy backroads. Playing RgG brings back memories of my visits to Tokyo. The attention to detail reminds me a lot of Grandia, although RgG is much more realistic. I love it.
Enough about the atmosphere. How does it play? The best way to describe it is Western RPG with beat'em up battles. See, most of the game takes place in a particular city. There, you have the freedom to walk around, trigger events, and start plenty of sub-quests. Since this game has a more adult edge, you can go to host clubs, strip clubs, and massage parlors. But you can also buy groceries, and eat at the local fast food burger joint. As you walk around, you'll get into random and not-so-random encounters with the local thugs. Surprisingly, the fighting is a lot deeper than I would have expected. I'm normally not one to like beat 'em ups, because of their button mashy nature. But in RgG, you're given a lot of freedom to move around, block, and even a timing-based counter system. These defensive options give the game a strategic edge. It's a fun system. What's also fun are the special moves. When your heat meter is full, you can pull off some cool attacks like face-stomping, slamming opponents against a wall or choking an enemy with a golf club. The neat thing is that many of these heat moves will be shown cinematic-style, with a close-up camera and slow-mo. My favorite move is slamming a bicycle on top of a downed opponent, bending the bike, and then jumping on top of the bike while it's still lying on the enemy. Mmm.
With all these positives, the game still manages to fall short of its promise. First of all, the difficulty is pretty unbalanced. In the beginning of the game, you welcome getting into fights because it's a source of income. But by mid-game, you have all the money you'll ever need. The fights themselves are also very unbalanced. While some of the fights will test your skill, most are pathetically easy. It doesn't necessarily get harder as you go along either. In many ways, it gets easier. That just makes it more infuriating as you try to complete the subquests, and BOOM. Encounter. Add in annoying and plentiful load times, and you'll find that combat gets old fast. Sometimes you'll have a 30 second load transition to the fight, a 10 second fight, and then another 15 second load transition back. Depending on where you go, you could be dragged into encounter after encounter. More load times. More easy button mashing. It's like a jRPG gone wrong.
Not only will you get to hate the meaningless fights, but city exploration will test your patience too. Because each "chapter" of the game is potential for new subquests, the gameplay consists of visiting and revisiting every nook and cranny of the city during each of your free roam sessions. How that's supposed to be fun, I'm not sure. It's just another one of those concepts that sounded cool in theory, but when you actually do it in play, isn't what it's cracked out to be.
Despite my complaints, Ryu ga Gotoku is hardly a bad game. If you want to take part in a yakuza film, SEGA has all the bases covered with great characters, a compelling storyline, and a convincing reproduction of Japanese city life. It also has a fun combat system with unexpected depth. But the game is marred by annoying RPG/adventure elements and an overall easy difficulty, that the combat engine is mostly wasted. As a cinematic experience, RgG is great. I simply would like more attention paid to the "game".
Friday, March 21, 2008
Metal Gear Solid 2 Substance
Metal Gear Solid 2 Substance
Stealth Action - XBox
HD Backup
1 player
From where I stand, MGS2 is the sole reason Sony dominated its rivals. At least from internet fandom, it seemed as if everyone wanted a PS2 simply because MGS2 was being made for it. It was one of the most hyped games ever in the history of gaming. I was never really taken in by Metal Gear Solid, unlike everyone else. Sure it was enjoyable, and for such a mainstream title, it did have interesting scenarios and gameplay mechanics. But I still felt it was too skim on game, and too much cinematic experience. So I was curious as to where MGS2 would go with the franchise.
True to its roots, Metal Gear Solid 2 follows a similar pattern of play to MGS. While you could simply shoot everyone you see, the relative scarcity of ammo and wealth of sneaking abilities would go to waste. Hiding, observing enemy patrol patterns, and sneaking up behind them to hold them up or snap their neck seems to be the more prudent route. But be careful. If you don't drag corpses away, that would tip the enemy off that there's an intruder on the premises and backup is called. The thing about this game is you can play the game however you want. You can go with guns blazing. You can evade all enemies. And you can do a little of both, and everything in between. You're given all the tools, and you can play it as you wish.
To that end, MGS2 feels more focused as a game than MGS. The game consists of two scenarios. One takes place on a Tanker ship. Another takes place 2 years later on a Waste Treatment Plant. Each location envelops you in its surroundings. You get a good sense of the scope of your missions. There's a lot of attention to detail. If you spend the time to study your surroundings in 1st Person view, you can see idol posters, secret passages, and even cockroaches :( Traversing through each situation is quite the task. The bosses put up a lot of fight too. Ultimately MGS2 is more refined, and much more challenging than its predecessor.
There is a lot of criticism leveled at MGS2 because of Raiden. The Tanker scenario plays out in usual fashion. But the Plant scenario features Raiden as the central character, instead of Solid Snake. But I don't really understand the criticisms, because you pretty much play him the same way. Raiden has all the abilities Snake has, except for one critical detail. Snake has an automatic radar so you always have a map and a guide to the enemy's patterns. With Raiden, you need to find computer terminals (Nodes) to download that building's schematics before you get radar. That means that up until you find the Nodes, you have to be more careful of where you go. I actually liked that aspect, because it made me more conscious of my surroundings. It forces you to look in 1st person for a longitudinal view that the camera obscures. It forces you to proceed slower and study what threats exist all around you. The other aspect I found interesting about playing as Raiden is the team dynamic. Although you face many obstacles and enemies along the way, you're not doing it alone. While you're at one task, other characters are at others. Although games have trained us to be the one-man hero, in MGS2, you are only PART of the solution. Tasks that other characters partake in affect you, and vice versa. The mission is bigger than you are.
But for all of that, the game is ... well... kinda boring. I really enjoyed the Tanker scenario, as it showcased all the strengths of this type of game. But the mechanics started to wear thin as I played on. First of all, the bulk of the game takes place in one location. That means there's little variety in the locales as you see the same type of structure over and over and over again. The amount of backtracking in the story ensures you'll be sick of it all. The other major thing is that MGS2 is nothing more than rehashed MGS. You can justify it all you want, but it just feels like Kojima and company said, "Hey, everyone liked our MGS game so let's just do the same thing again with better hardware!" So you have a sniper scene, torture scene, your guided missile through airducts scene... If I wanted to play MGS, I would have. MGS2 relies way too much on nostalgia.
To offset the boredom, MGS2 also offers plenty of irritation. Like MGS, most of the communication in the game is done via codec, some nanotech radio thing. But unlike MGS, codec communication is far more frequent. So you'll be walking around and all of a sudden you'll get a radio buzzer going off. Finish that conversation and a few steps later, you may receive another one. In concept it sounds ok, but its ample execution here frustrates. The Plant scenario in particular doesn't know when to stop with the communication. It interrupts the flow of the game far too frequently for my tastes. Also off-putting is that the codec communication often reminds you that you're playing a game. It'll tell you to "Push the Action button" or "Get into First Person view". To top it off, they'll display video captures of Metal Gear, Metal Gear Solid, or MGS2 footage as a self-tribute. But in the end, all this does is patronize the player and shatter the illusion of immersion they tried to create. As far as gameplay flaws, whenever you are caught by the enemy and trigger a red alert, there's a set amount of time before all the alarms clear, and the enemy stops searching for you. Sometimes you can find a perfect hiding spot that's completely out of view, so the enemy can't spot you. But you still have to sit there for 2 minutes or whatever until the red & yellow alert clears. I know that from a consistency standpoint, they shouldn't reduce the wait time. But it's certainly a nuisance when you know you have your safe haven and yet have to just stand there, doing nothing but watching the seconds count down. Maybe I'm not really much into this stealth thing at all.
Finally, there's the cinematic story. There's a whole cast of characters that are each secretly working towards their own goals. There are conspiracies, betrayals, coverups, blackmail, the whole nine yards. It's all interesting enough, but the story's self-importance is its downfall. Just like the codec communication, there are a lot of cutscenes in the game. Each and every clip screams: "Lookit me! This game is full of awe and wonder!" But the only thing I'm wondering is why Kojima thinks his writing and directing is so amazing. I felt as if every cinematic sequence was pretentious, as if they wanted to be taken seriously... but tried way too hard. The latter parts of the game try to tackle philosophy, sociology and existentialism. Although the themes are decent, they've been done elsewhere, and executed far better.
Metal Gear Solid 2 Substance contains the original Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty, as well as a ton of extras. There's tons of VR missions, game scenarios, supporting storybooks, boss attack mode, etc. If you enjoyed the game, the extra content in Substance offers many additional hours of playtime. I appreciate the wealth of extras included in Substance. But for all its MGS rehashing, irritating design decisions, and contrived cinematics, I didn't enjoy playing Metal Gear Solid 2 very much.
Stealth Action - XBox
HD Backup
1 player
From where I stand, MGS2 is the sole reason Sony dominated its rivals. At least from internet fandom, it seemed as if everyone wanted a PS2 simply because MGS2 was being made for it. It was one of the most hyped games ever in the history of gaming. I was never really taken in by Metal Gear Solid, unlike everyone else. Sure it was enjoyable, and for such a mainstream title, it did have interesting scenarios and gameplay mechanics. But I still felt it was too skim on game, and too much cinematic experience. So I was curious as to where MGS2 would go with the franchise.
True to its roots, Metal Gear Solid 2 follows a similar pattern of play to MGS. While you could simply shoot everyone you see, the relative scarcity of ammo and wealth of sneaking abilities would go to waste. Hiding, observing enemy patrol patterns, and sneaking up behind them to hold them up or snap their neck seems to be the more prudent route. But be careful. If you don't drag corpses away, that would tip the enemy off that there's an intruder on the premises and backup is called. The thing about this game is you can play the game however you want. You can go with guns blazing. You can evade all enemies. And you can do a little of both, and everything in between. You're given all the tools, and you can play it as you wish.
To that end, MGS2 feels more focused as a game than MGS. The game consists of two scenarios. One takes place on a Tanker ship. Another takes place 2 years later on a Waste Treatment Plant. Each location envelops you in its surroundings. You get a good sense of the scope of your missions. There's a lot of attention to detail. If you spend the time to study your surroundings in 1st Person view, you can see idol posters, secret passages, and even cockroaches :( Traversing through each situation is quite the task. The bosses put up a lot of fight too. Ultimately MGS2 is more refined, and much more challenging than its predecessor.
There is a lot of criticism leveled at MGS2 because of Raiden. The Tanker scenario plays out in usual fashion. But the Plant scenario features Raiden as the central character, instead of Solid Snake. But I don't really understand the criticisms, because you pretty much play him the same way. Raiden has all the abilities Snake has, except for one critical detail. Snake has an automatic radar so you always have a map and a guide to the enemy's patterns. With Raiden, you need to find computer terminals (Nodes) to download that building's schematics before you get radar. That means that up until you find the Nodes, you have to be more careful of where you go. I actually liked that aspect, because it made me more conscious of my surroundings. It forces you to look in 1st person for a longitudinal view that the camera obscures. It forces you to proceed slower and study what threats exist all around you. The other aspect I found interesting about playing as Raiden is the team dynamic. Although you face many obstacles and enemies along the way, you're not doing it alone. While you're at one task, other characters are at others. Although games have trained us to be the one-man hero, in MGS2, you are only PART of the solution. Tasks that other characters partake in affect you, and vice versa. The mission is bigger than you are.
But for all of that, the game is ... well... kinda boring. I really enjoyed the Tanker scenario, as it showcased all the strengths of this type of game. But the mechanics started to wear thin as I played on. First of all, the bulk of the game takes place in one location. That means there's little variety in the locales as you see the same type of structure over and over and over again. The amount of backtracking in the story ensures you'll be sick of it all. The other major thing is that MGS2 is nothing more than rehashed MGS. You can justify it all you want, but it just feels like Kojima and company said, "Hey, everyone liked our MGS game so let's just do the same thing again with better hardware!" So you have a sniper scene, torture scene, your guided missile through airducts scene... If I wanted to play MGS, I would have. MGS2 relies way too much on nostalgia.
To offset the boredom, MGS2 also offers plenty of irritation. Like MGS, most of the communication in the game is done via codec, some nanotech radio thing. But unlike MGS, codec communication is far more frequent. So you'll be walking around and all of a sudden you'll get a radio buzzer going off. Finish that conversation and a few steps later, you may receive another one. In concept it sounds ok, but its ample execution here frustrates. The Plant scenario in particular doesn't know when to stop with the communication. It interrupts the flow of the game far too frequently for my tastes. Also off-putting is that the codec communication often reminds you that you're playing a game. It'll tell you to "Push the Action button" or "Get into First Person view". To top it off, they'll display video captures of Metal Gear, Metal Gear Solid, or MGS2 footage as a self-tribute. But in the end, all this does is patronize the player and shatter the illusion of immersion they tried to create. As far as gameplay flaws, whenever you are caught by the enemy and trigger a red alert, there's a set amount of time before all the alarms clear, and the enemy stops searching for you. Sometimes you can find a perfect hiding spot that's completely out of view, so the enemy can't spot you. But you still have to sit there for 2 minutes or whatever until the red & yellow alert clears. I know that from a consistency standpoint, they shouldn't reduce the wait time. But it's certainly a nuisance when you know you have your safe haven and yet have to just stand there, doing nothing but watching the seconds count down. Maybe I'm not really much into this stealth thing at all.
Finally, there's the cinematic story. There's a whole cast of characters that are each secretly working towards their own goals. There are conspiracies, betrayals, coverups, blackmail, the whole nine yards. It's all interesting enough, but the story's self-importance is its downfall. Just like the codec communication, there are a lot of cutscenes in the game. Each and every clip screams: "Lookit me! This game is full of awe and wonder!" But the only thing I'm wondering is why Kojima thinks his writing and directing is so amazing. I felt as if every cinematic sequence was pretentious, as if they wanted to be taken seriously... but tried way too hard. The latter parts of the game try to tackle philosophy, sociology and existentialism. Although the themes are decent, they've been done elsewhere, and executed far better.
Metal Gear Solid 2 Substance contains the original Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty, as well as a ton of extras. There's tons of VR missions, game scenarios, supporting storybooks, boss attack mode, etc. If you enjoyed the game, the extra content in Substance offers many additional hours of playtime. I appreciate the wealth of extras included in Substance. But for all its MGS rehashing, irritating design decisions, and contrived cinematics, I didn't enjoy playing Metal Gear Solid 2 very much.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Tomb Raider
Tomb Raiders
Puzzle Platform - Sega Saturn
Battery Backup - 1 save
1 player
While I've always heard many good things about the original Tomb Raider, I never had a chance to play it. The Saturn version is reputably better of the two console ports, and the "s" in Tomb Raiders indicates the Japanese port. Aside from being disappointed that it's Jp dubbed, I was happy to bypass those humongous US cases.
Being a Saturn 3D title, I was immediately skeptical about its performance. Granted, TR would seem very dated by today's gamers no matter what. The textures are grainy, and pixellation is everywhere. But for its time, Saturn TR is one of the smoothest 3D titles on the system, with little framerate stutter. That leaves the game open to do its thing.
And Tomb Raider's thing is exploration. You play as Lara, searching ancient sites for treasures and artifacts. The locations are very mysterious and really lend themselves to puzzle-platformer mechanics. You get the impression that whoever built these sites did not want anyone to waltz into them and pillage. So there are puzzles to figure out, traps to avoid, and stretches & stretches of silence. The greatest asset to the game is its minimalism. Although the game has music, it is rarely used. There are also very few enemies in the game, and of these, most of them are what you would expect in an abandoned environment - bats and rodents are common occurances. What this means is that for most of the game, you are completely alone, with the sounds of just your footsteps and grunts accentuating that solitude. And it works. I found myself being overwhelmed by the vast unknown environments. I found myself being spooked when a tiger pounced on me after rushing into a new room. I found myself completely feeling what Lara was feeling. TR excels on a psychological level.
But all that would be moot if the game was lacking. Luckily, Tomb Raider has a really good mix of puzzles and platforming. The puzzles range anywhere from moving boxes around to flipping switches to figuring out how to traverse a field of traps without dying. There's quite a bit of variety to them, and the difficulty seems about right. Perhaps one aspect of the game that may not resonate well with people are its tank controls. That leaves Lara at a slight disadvantage in mobility, making combat and efficient movement a little bit cumbersome. But what is gained in the tank controls is its platform jumping precision. Each ledge is carefully designed to be a certain distance away from other ledges. The control scheme offers pinpoint accuracy in jumping distances, so being off by even one step could mean certain death. Every jump is calculated, and it's only achieveable by the tank controls. Loosey-goosey controls would not offer the same level of consistency. You get the impression that every single platform challenge in the game is a carefully crafted scenario.
I had a lot of fun with the game. It felt immersive. It felt challenging. It felt very detailed and meticulously designed. There's tons of secrets to explore and the environments are such that you want to explore. Every solved puzzle actually feels like an accomplishment, as you dig deeper and deeper into the sites. Strangely, the inclusion of other people in the game hampers its focus. It's as if the designers weren't sure if you'd be bored with natural predators and threw in people to fire back at you. The problem with that is it taints the overall feeling of solitude. Whereas stumbling upon a pack of alligators can be creepy, finding human opponents in these ruins come off as an annoyance. Still, the heart of the game is exploration and to that end, this is the best gaming effort I've played.
Puzzle Platform - Sega Saturn
Battery Backup - 1 save
1 player
While I've always heard many good things about the original Tomb Raider, I never had a chance to play it. The Saturn version is reputably better of the two console ports, and the "s" in Tomb Raiders indicates the Japanese port. Aside from being disappointed that it's Jp dubbed, I was happy to bypass those humongous US cases.
Being a Saturn 3D title, I was immediately skeptical about its performance. Granted, TR would seem very dated by today's gamers no matter what. The textures are grainy, and pixellation is everywhere. But for its time, Saturn TR is one of the smoothest 3D titles on the system, with little framerate stutter. That leaves the game open to do its thing.
And Tomb Raider's thing is exploration. You play as Lara, searching ancient sites for treasures and artifacts. The locations are very mysterious and really lend themselves to puzzle-platformer mechanics. You get the impression that whoever built these sites did not want anyone to waltz into them and pillage. So there are puzzles to figure out, traps to avoid, and stretches & stretches of silence. The greatest asset to the game is its minimalism. Although the game has music, it is rarely used. There are also very few enemies in the game, and of these, most of them are what you would expect in an abandoned environment - bats and rodents are common occurances. What this means is that for most of the game, you are completely alone, with the sounds of just your footsteps and grunts accentuating that solitude. And it works. I found myself being overwhelmed by the vast unknown environments. I found myself being spooked when a tiger pounced on me after rushing into a new room. I found myself completely feeling what Lara was feeling. TR excels on a psychological level.
But all that would be moot if the game was lacking. Luckily, Tomb Raider has a really good mix of puzzles and platforming. The puzzles range anywhere from moving boxes around to flipping switches to figuring out how to traverse a field of traps without dying. There's quite a bit of variety to them, and the difficulty seems about right. Perhaps one aspect of the game that may not resonate well with people are its tank controls. That leaves Lara at a slight disadvantage in mobility, making combat and efficient movement a little bit cumbersome. But what is gained in the tank controls is its platform jumping precision. Each ledge is carefully designed to be a certain distance away from other ledges. The control scheme offers pinpoint accuracy in jumping distances, so being off by even one step could mean certain death. Every jump is calculated, and it's only achieveable by the tank controls. Loosey-goosey controls would not offer the same level of consistency. You get the impression that every single platform challenge in the game is a carefully crafted scenario.
I had a lot of fun with the game. It felt immersive. It felt challenging. It felt very detailed and meticulously designed. There's tons of secrets to explore and the environments are such that you want to explore. Every solved puzzle actually feels like an accomplishment, as you dig deeper and deeper into the sites. Strangely, the inclusion of other people in the game hampers its focus. It's as if the designers weren't sure if you'd be bored with natural predators and threw in people to fire back at you. The problem with that is it taints the overall feeling of solitude. Whereas stumbling upon a pack of alligators can be creepy, finding human opponents in these ruins come off as an annoyance. Still, the heart of the game is exploration and to that end, this is the best gaming effort I've played.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Ace Attorney Apollo Justice
Ace Attorney Apollo Justice
Adventure - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup - 1 save, 1 quicksave
1 player
The latest game in the series, Gyakuten Saiban 4 is the first entry to be made from the ground-up as a Nintendo DS game. I enjoyed the inclusion of DS features in the DS-exclusive case 5 of the first game, so I had high hopes for this one. Unfortunately GS4 not only has the worst gameplay of the entire series, but the plot is so full of holes that the entire game just felt messy.
The new main character that you control is Apollo Justice. Phoenix Wright is definitely still a part of the game, although he has a different role. The first case starts off with a much older Phoenix. Apparently somewhere down the line, he lost his attorney badge. With a promising start like that, you'd think there'd be more to back it up. Thankfully, none of the cases feel like filler. But perhaps that is part of the problem. The thing is, while the first case gives you a lot of questions, and the rest of the game fills in the gaps with answers, the outcome makes less and less sense. First of all, it almost seems like Capcom tried to tie everything together in the most ambitious, but contrived way. I felt the same way about the last case of GS3. But worse than that, when the revelations are made, behaviors are so contrary to the personalities that have been built up, you can't help but to think that the writers missed something.
One thing I'm glad they got rid of was the horrible mysticism of the first 3 games, where Mia would appear out of nowhere and give you the answer when you were stuck. In its stead is "Perceive". Apollo Justice has this power to sense when someone is nervous. Then he can activate "Perceive" and look for any strange habits - perhaps a witness will scratch their nose when they're unsure about something, or they'll look away when they lie. The perceive system, when activated, will analyze a witness' testimony in slow motion. You'll get to zoom in the witness to look for signs of nervousness during key phrases. Find the habit, and call them out on it.
Here's the problem though. It is purely guess and check. Every line of testimony dialog will have 3-4 phrases in it. Not only do you have to be looking at the right place for the nervous habit, but also the right time, when they speak the phrase they're lying about. There is no skill. There is no logic. It is simply a matter of pointing your field of vision at the right zoomed-in location, at the right time. At least with evidence, it's possible to think about and logically deduce testimony contradictions. But Perceive is purely guess and check. Another problem is that it isn't really realistic. If I were lying in a courtroom, and a lawyer said to me, "Wait... I saw you twiddling your fingers. You must be lying!!!", I certainly would not admit to it. Here, many of the witnesses will. There's just too much suspension of disbelief.
And then there's the DS-features. Ema Skye returns from the first game, and she seems to only exist as an opportunity to do stupid forensic tasks. When you need to get a fingerprint, you poke the screen a few times to spread powder, then you blow in the mic to blow the powder away. When you need to compare footprints, you poke the footprint a few times to inject a mold, slide the stylus back and forth to flatten it, then rub it with a stylus, acting as a blow dryer. While these segments are interactive and provide a break from typical j-adventure monotony, the tasks aren't all that enjoyable and just felt thrown-in just because. The only use of the touch screen I liked was a sound mixer you receive in Case 3. It allowed you to play around with equalizer settings to analyze music tracks. That was a creative use and definitely had a role to play in the case itself. But this is an exception rather than the rule.
All in all, Ace Attorney Apollo Justice was still very much like the other games in the series. It has similar humor and tone. Its characters are similarly memorable. It has the same pitfalls. But it adds some new problems as well, due to the gimmicky DS features and poor continuity in the writing. Fans of the series will still enjoy it, but it's still a sloppy Capcom effort.
Adventure - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup - 1 save, 1 quicksave
1 player
The latest game in the series, Gyakuten Saiban 4 is the first entry to be made from the ground-up as a Nintendo DS game. I enjoyed the inclusion of DS features in the DS-exclusive case 5 of the first game, so I had high hopes for this one. Unfortunately GS4 not only has the worst gameplay of the entire series, but the plot is so full of holes that the entire game just felt messy.
The new main character that you control is Apollo Justice. Phoenix Wright is definitely still a part of the game, although he has a different role. The first case starts off with a much older Phoenix. Apparently somewhere down the line, he lost his attorney badge. With a promising start like that, you'd think there'd be more to back it up. Thankfully, none of the cases feel like filler. But perhaps that is part of the problem. The thing is, while the first case gives you a lot of questions, and the rest of the game fills in the gaps with answers, the outcome makes less and less sense. First of all, it almost seems like Capcom tried to tie everything together in the most ambitious, but contrived way. I felt the same way about the last case of GS3. But worse than that, when the revelations are made, behaviors are so contrary to the personalities that have been built up, you can't help but to think that the writers missed something.
One thing I'm glad they got rid of was the horrible mysticism of the first 3 games, where Mia would appear out of nowhere and give you the answer when you were stuck. In its stead is "Perceive". Apollo Justice has this power to sense when someone is nervous. Then he can activate "Perceive" and look for any strange habits - perhaps a witness will scratch their nose when they're unsure about something, or they'll look away when they lie. The perceive system, when activated, will analyze a witness' testimony in slow motion. You'll get to zoom in the witness to look for signs of nervousness during key phrases. Find the habit, and call them out on it.
Here's the problem though. It is purely guess and check. Every line of testimony dialog will have 3-4 phrases in it. Not only do you have to be looking at the right place for the nervous habit, but also the right time, when they speak the phrase they're lying about. There is no skill. There is no logic. It is simply a matter of pointing your field of vision at the right zoomed-in location, at the right time. At least with evidence, it's possible to think about and logically deduce testimony contradictions. But Perceive is purely guess and check. Another problem is that it isn't really realistic. If I were lying in a courtroom, and a lawyer said to me, "Wait... I saw you twiddling your fingers. You must be lying!!!", I certainly would not admit to it. Here, many of the witnesses will. There's just too much suspension of disbelief.
And then there's the DS-features. Ema Skye returns from the first game, and she seems to only exist as an opportunity to do stupid forensic tasks. When you need to get a fingerprint, you poke the screen a few times to spread powder, then you blow in the mic to blow the powder away. When you need to compare footprints, you poke the footprint a few times to inject a mold, slide the stylus back and forth to flatten it, then rub it with a stylus, acting as a blow dryer. While these segments are interactive and provide a break from typical j-adventure monotony, the tasks aren't all that enjoyable and just felt thrown-in just because. The only use of the touch screen I liked was a sound mixer you receive in Case 3. It allowed you to play around with equalizer settings to analyze music tracks. That was a creative use and definitely had a role to play in the case itself. But this is an exception rather than the rule.
All in all, Ace Attorney Apollo Justice was still very much like the other games in the series. It has similar humor and tone. Its characters are similarly memorable. It has the same pitfalls. But it adds some new problems as well, due to the gimmicky DS features and poor continuity in the writing. Fans of the series will still enjoy it, but it's still a sloppy Capcom effort.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Grim Grimoire
Grim Grimoire
Real Time Strategy - Playstation 2
Memory Card - 4 save slots
1 player
I have never really been a fan of Real Time Strategy games. I do not like how speed is of the utmost importance, where the ability to quickly manage groups/abilities with hot keys and fast clicking determines victory... or defeat. I do not like how you can only be attentively involved in one place at one time. In short, I don't enjoy the real time-ness of it. But as soon as I saw the trailer for Vanillaware's Grim Grimoire, I knew I had to have it. It would be very much the typical RTS if it weren't for one thing. The action pauses when you issue commands, "fixing" the very thing I didn't like about RTS. Little did I know that Grim Grimoire would be absoutely amazing all around.
The main character is Lillet Brau, a new student to the Magic Academy. There she meets some interesting folk, and being the new student, doesn't really get beyond introductions. It's all fairly typical anime-type stuff. Then it happens, and the plot is turned up several notches. You get thrown in an escalating crazy story, and nothing initially makes sense. But the mystery is very effective in establishing a connection between the player and Lillet. Events are occuring all around her, and as she learns why, we learn why. Lillet also gets to learn a lot about the other characters, their backgrounds and their motivations as time goes on. It's very rare that video game storytelling appeals to me, but Vanillaware has nailed it with Grim Grimoire.
Then there's the actual game mechanics. In RTS games, you need to build bases, upgrade them for additional skills and bonuses, mine for resources, be prepared to defend your bases, and create armies to destroy the enemy. All of these are present in Grim Grimoire. But there's a few differences. Instead of races, there are four realms of magic - Glamour, Necromancy, Sorcery and Alchemy. But unlike other RTS games, you are not confined to one particular realm. There are still advantages to building upon the same realm, because stat upgrades only apply to creatures within that realm. But Grim Grimoire offers additional flexibility by allowing you to make everything if you can afford it. From the seemingly useless Grimalkin (cannot attack) to the almighty Dragon (has best HP/defense in the game, and an attack that can wipe out an army in seconds), all of the units have a purpose in the game. In fact, the Grimalkin can singlehandedly render a Dragon useless by putting it to sleep.
As suspected, the ability to pause the action when you issue commands is much appreciated. For me, it means I can pause the action, look around the map, and plan what I want to do for that particular moment. Two simultaneous battles going on in different areas? Not a problem. Issue a command, pause the game, move the camera to the other battle, unpause, and issue commands. It is the most control I've seen in a RTS, and that, to me, makes it the most strategic.
Perhaps even more impressive than the gaming mechanics is the game design. Every stage is a meticulously planned scenario. The first several stages are introductory type stuff, where the game walks you through basic tasks. As you complete stages, you gain additional grimoires or upgraded grimoire abilities. Grimoires are books that allow you to summon buildings. So after completing each stage, you have new abilities to look forward to. But it also means that each stage was made with your present abilities in mind. This is taken to the next level with the "Trial Stages", which are bonus stages not related to the main storyline. Some trial stages will allow you to use all 12 grimoires. Others will limit you to two specific ones. It forces you to figure out how to overcome the stages with what you're given.
There are some annoyances with the game, but they are very minor. When you power the game on, the startup time is pretty lengthy. It takes a good minute or more to get to the title screen. Also, the trial stages are unlocked along the way as you play the main story. But they are not in synch with what you've learned in the main game. When I unlocked the first Trial Stage, the only thing I learned how to do was mine for mana. So I tried the Trial Stage, and was overwhelmed by having all grimoires unlocked. I didn't know what any of the units did, so I thought it was weird that they made it the first Trial Stage. But with Grim Grimoire's colorful 2D presentation, whimsical soundtrack, 25 bonus trial stages, and a game that is a pleasure to play, these complaints hardly drag the game down.
Grim Grimoire is without question, the standard for console RTS.
Real Time Strategy - Playstation 2
Memory Card - 4 save slots
1 player
I have never really been a fan of Real Time Strategy games. I do not like how speed is of the utmost importance, where the ability to quickly manage groups/abilities with hot keys and fast clicking determines victory... or defeat. I do not like how you can only be attentively involved in one place at one time. In short, I don't enjoy the real time-ness of it. But as soon as I saw the trailer for Vanillaware's Grim Grimoire, I knew I had to have it. It would be very much the typical RTS if it weren't for one thing. The action pauses when you issue commands, "fixing" the very thing I didn't like about RTS. Little did I know that Grim Grimoire would be absoutely amazing all around.
The main character is Lillet Brau, a new student to the Magic Academy. There she meets some interesting folk, and being the new student, doesn't really get beyond introductions. It's all fairly typical anime-type stuff. Then it happens, and the plot is turned up several notches. You get thrown in an escalating crazy story, and nothing initially makes sense. But the mystery is very effective in establishing a connection between the player and Lillet. Events are occuring all around her, and as she learns why, we learn why. Lillet also gets to learn a lot about the other characters, their backgrounds and their motivations as time goes on. It's very rare that video game storytelling appeals to me, but Vanillaware has nailed it with Grim Grimoire.
Then there's the actual game mechanics. In RTS games, you need to build bases, upgrade them for additional skills and bonuses, mine for resources, be prepared to defend your bases, and create armies to destroy the enemy. All of these are present in Grim Grimoire. But there's a few differences. Instead of races, there are four realms of magic - Glamour, Necromancy, Sorcery and Alchemy. But unlike other RTS games, you are not confined to one particular realm. There are still advantages to building upon the same realm, because stat upgrades only apply to creatures within that realm. But Grim Grimoire offers additional flexibility by allowing you to make everything if you can afford it. From the seemingly useless Grimalkin (cannot attack) to the almighty Dragon (has best HP/defense in the game, and an attack that can wipe out an army in seconds), all of the units have a purpose in the game. In fact, the Grimalkin can singlehandedly render a Dragon useless by putting it to sleep.
As suspected, the ability to pause the action when you issue commands is much appreciated. For me, it means I can pause the action, look around the map, and plan what I want to do for that particular moment. Two simultaneous battles going on in different areas? Not a problem. Issue a command, pause the game, move the camera to the other battle, unpause, and issue commands. It is the most control I've seen in a RTS, and that, to me, makes it the most strategic.
Perhaps even more impressive than the gaming mechanics is the game design. Every stage is a meticulously planned scenario. The first several stages are introductory type stuff, where the game walks you through basic tasks. As you complete stages, you gain additional grimoires or upgraded grimoire abilities. Grimoires are books that allow you to summon buildings. So after completing each stage, you have new abilities to look forward to. But it also means that each stage was made with your present abilities in mind. This is taken to the next level with the "Trial Stages", which are bonus stages not related to the main storyline. Some trial stages will allow you to use all 12 grimoires. Others will limit you to two specific ones. It forces you to figure out how to overcome the stages with what you're given.
There are some annoyances with the game, but they are very minor. When you power the game on, the startup time is pretty lengthy. It takes a good minute or more to get to the title screen. Also, the trial stages are unlocked along the way as you play the main story. But they are not in synch with what you've learned in the main game. When I unlocked the first Trial Stage, the only thing I learned how to do was mine for mana. So I tried the Trial Stage, and was overwhelmed by having all grimoires unlocked. I didn't know what any of the units did, so I thought it was weird that they made it the first Trial Stage. But with Grim Grimoire's colorful 2D presentation, whimsical soundtrack, 25 bonus trial stages, and a game that is a pleasure to play, these complaints hardly drag the game down.
Grim Grimoire is without question, the standard for console RTS.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Egg Monster Hero
Egg Monster Hero
Role Playing Game - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup - 3 saves
1 player / 8 player WLAN
For those who have followed the Nintendo DS when it first came out, Egg Monster Hero might sound familiar. Being Square Enix's first DS game, it gathered a bit of attention, no doubt due to it showing up on Nintendo.com's US release list. But it's been several years now and still no translation. That's a shame, because EMH is a pretty interesting game for many reasons.
The story begins with a prince being dumped on a foreign island, in order to train and learn responsibility. Along the way, you'll meet the residents of the island. One of them will even develop some feelings for you... The island houses the Katori Kingdom, and being there envelops you into their war.
Egg Monster Hero was developed by Neverland Co. (Lufia series, Chaos Seed, Lodoss DC, even some involvement in Grandia), whom I have great respect for. In EMH, you walk around in typical jRPG fashion. If you bump into the visible enemies, an encounter is initiated. But they did away with the traditional RPG systems in favor of something only the DS can do: touch & scratch. Your prince and the enemy are on opposite sides of the touchpad screen. Surrounding each of the characters is an army of <= 20 (depending on your health). So in this enclosed arena, you play bumper cars until one of you remain standing. This is done by brushing your character/army in the direction of your opponent. Faster brushing is rewarded by doing heavier damage. The formation of your army can be customized to match your style.
But this game isn't Touch & Scratch Hero. You also have EP (egg points?) to summon an Egg Monster. When you do this, the game switches to a turn-based style of play. A portrait of your Egg Monster is displayed on the touch screen, divided into 9 sections. Touch one of the 9 squares to initiate an attack. Some of the squares will do nothing. Others will unleash massive damage. Enemies are also able to summon Egg Monsters. In that case, you will also need to select which of THEIR nine boxes to attack. Each enemy has at least one weak point. They also have a strong point, where they immediately counterattack. By playing around with your attacks and targeting different points of the enemy, you will become familiar with the ins and outs of the Egg Monsters. But watch out... if your Egg Monster dies, its corresponding Egg is destroyed, meaning you can no longer summon. There are only two places in the game where an Egg can be restored, so use them wisely.
The Egg Monsters are key to the game, because they are much more powerful than your army. When you use an Egg Monster to defeat an enemy, you will actually gain experience points for that Egg. When an Egg is leveled, you gain an additional monster for that Egg (up to 10). There is no leveling for your army, however you will be able to boost your stats by collecting items.
Egg Monster Hero is part of the Square's Hanjuku Hero parody series. As such, EMH has very wacky humor. The dialog choices can be pretty amusing - one of the story items you'll need to find is an Axe to cut wood. But when you come across it, you have a choice of picking it up, ignoring it or JASON. Jason? Think hockey mask serial killer. That's the kind of game EMH is. The style of the game also is meant to mimic a performing arts theater. There is an audience on the bottom screen, and the audience will randomly chatter constantly while you move around on the top screen. Bosses, once defeated, will also join the audience and make comments. It's really quite amusing.
But there are some drawbacks: The touch & scratch battles are just asking to put real scratches on your touch screen. You think Ouendan circles are bad? At least Ouendan doesn't demand heavy scratching every couple minutes. The user interface could also use some work. You can only move with the D-pad, and can only interact with objects with the buttons. That means you'll have to be playing with both hands, with a stylus between your fingers. It's constant switching between regular controls and stylus controls. In addition, the Egg Monster battles all come down to strict trial & error/memorization. There is some logic to the strong attacks and enemy weakpoints, but it is not always apparent.
Egg Monster Hero is great for what it is. It's a unique take on a DS RPG, with some gaming additions not seen before in other jRPGs. There's a lot of Egg Monsters to play with and figure out. Also the scratch battles are a bit more interesting than the usual type of action RPGs where you just jam on the attack button. And the humor here really made me realize that Square is so much better when they don't take themselves seriously. The dialog is definitely a high point. Sometimes the jokes were corny, but it sure beats the pretentious emo stuff they have in their main games. I imagine a lot of the nifty details would be lost on someone who doesn't understand Japanese. If you do, get ready for a fun romp.
Role Playing Game - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup - 3 saves
1 player / 8 player WLAN
For those who have followed the Nintendo DS when it first came out, Egg Monster Hero might sound familiar. Being Square Enix's first DS game, it gathered a bit of attention, no doubt due to it showing up on Nintendo.com's US release list. But it's been several years now and still no translation. That's a shame, because EMH is a pretty interesting game for many reasons.
The story begins with a prince being dumped on a foreign island, in order to train and learn responsibility. Along the way, you'll meet the residents of the island. One of them will even develop some feelings for you... The island houses the Katori Kingdom, and being there envelops you into their war.
Egg Monster Hero was developed by Neverland Co. (Lufia series, Chaos Seed, Lodoss DC, even some involvement in Grandia), whom I have great respect for. In EMH, you walk around in typical jRPG fashion. If you bump into the visible enemies, an encounter is initiated. But they did away with the traditional RPG systems in favor of something only the DS can do: touch & scratch. Your prince and the enemy are on opposite sides of the touchpad screen. Surrounding each of the characters is an army of <= 20 (depending on your health). So in this enclosed arena, you play bumper cars until one of you remain standing. This is done by brushing your character/army in the direction of your opponent. Faster brushing is rewarded by doing heavier damage. The formation of your army can be customized to match your style.
But this game isn't Touch & Scratch Hero. You also have EP (egg points?) to summon an Egg Monster. When you do this, the game switches to a turn-based style of play. A portrait of your Egg Monster is displayed on the touch screen, divided into 9 sections. Touch one of the 9 squares to initiate an attack. Some of the squares will do nothing. Others will unleash massive damage. Enemies are also able to summon Egg Monsters. In that case, you will also need to select which of THEIR nine boxes to attack. Each enemy has at least one weak point. They also have a strong point, where they immediately counterattack. By playing around with your attacks and targeting different points of the enemy, you will become familiar with the ins and outs of the Egg Monsters. But watch out... if your Egg Monster dies, its corresponding Egg is destroyed, meaning you can no longer summon. There are only two places in the game where an Egg can be restored, so use them wisely.
The Egg Monsters are key to the game, because they are much more powerful than your army. When you use an Egg Monster to defeat an enemy, you will actually gain experience points for that Egg. When an Egg is leveled, you gain an additional monster for that Egg (up to 10). There is no leveling for your army, however you will be able to boost your stats by collecting items.
Egg Monster Hero is part of the Square's Hanjuku Hero parody series. As such, EMH has very wacky humor. The dialog choices can be pretty amusing - one of the story items you'll need to find is an Axe to cut wood. But when you come across it, you have a choice of picking it up, ignoring it or JASON. Jason? Think hockey mask serial killer. That's the kind of game EMH is. The style of the game also is meant to mimic a performing arts theater. There is an audience on the bottom screen, and the audience will randomly chatter constantly while you move around on the top screen. Bosses, once defeated, will also join the audience and make comments. It's really quite amusing.
But there are some drawbacks: The touch & scratch battles are just asking to put real scratches on your touch screen. You think Ouendan circles are bad? At least Ouendan doesn't demand heavy scratching every couple minutes. The user interface could also use some work. You can only move with the D-pad, and can only interact with objects with the buttons. That means you'll have to be playing with both hands, with a stylus between your fingers. It's constant switching between regular controls and stylus controls. In addition, the Egg Monster battles all come down to strict trial & error/memorization. There is some logic to the strong attacks and enemy weakpoints, but it is not always apparent.
Egg Monster Hero is great for what it is. It's a unique take on a DS RPG, with some gaming additions not seen before in other jRPGs. There's a lot of Egg Monsters to play with and figure out. Also the scratch battles are a bit more interesting than the usual type of action RPGs where you just jam on the attack button. And the humor here really made me realize that Square is so much better when they don't take themselves seriously. The dialog is definitely a high point. Sometimes the jokes were corny, but it sure beats the pretentious emo stuff they have in their main games. I imagine a lot of the nifty details would be lost on someone who doesn't understand Japanese. If you do, get ready for a fun romp.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Contact
Contact
Role Playing Game - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup - 3 saves
1 player / Multi wifi
"Things you WON'T find in Contact: A dull moment. Normalcy. A guy with spikey hair and/or amnesia. Dramatic monologues. The same battles you've been fighting since the 16 bit era.
Things you WILL find in Contact: Monkeys. Cosmic terrorists. Powerful attack stickers. Fishing. Cooking. Humor. Fun with Nintendo Wi-Fi. Deeper meaning in life. (Results may vary.) Costumes that increase your power and make you more fun to be around."
That is the description on the back of the box. Although the assertions are not entirely incorrect, I'm not sure if I got what I wanted either.
Let's start with "the same battles you've been fighting since the 16 bit era". True to form, Contact isn't like Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy and the like. Instead, it mirrors old western style RPGs like MUDs or whatever where you simply initiate the attack, and every "turn" you'll automatically attack until you or the enemy dies. You could stop your attacking, but then the enemy would just pursue you and hit you all the while. You could bring up a menu screen and use items. Or you can use one of your special attacks/magic spells. That's the extent of the fighting. It's simple, but ... not particularly involving.
How about "Dramatic monologues"? There isn't much of that either, but instead, there's this hokey interaction between the on-screen characters and you, the player. While this has been done before in Panzer Dragoon Saga, it's a bit patronizing here because they constantly talk to you. It's very childish and won't let you forget you're playing a game.
And believe me, "dull moment"s are not in short supply. The overall plot is a simple one: collect all the crystals, so the Professor character can pilot his ship into space. The crystals are spread out on multiple areas, and are guarded by bosses. Shoe string plots don't bother me, but as I mentioned earlier, gameplay is not its strongest suit. The combat is so un-involving that you don't actually do a whole lot in the game. And that's the biggest weakness. You're just moving a character through the motions.
Combine lack of control with tedium and you get the rest of the game. Many of the systems the game has to offer: fishing, cooking, etc is just plain tedious. Leveling up happens in real time. As you get hit, you build up defense and vitality. As you cast water spells, you gain in that affinity. Each stat levels up individually so in a single attack, you could level up two different stats at once. But while often used stats are fairly fluid in their improvement, things like cooking are cumbersome. You can only level up your cooking stat by cooking. You can only use your cooking skill at designated locations. You only have cooking skill when you're in the Chef outfit. You can only change into your Chef outfit on your ship. There's so many limitations that unless you have the right costume at the right time, you end up having to go places twice. Or thrice.
Still, despite all its problems, Contact is not a complete wash. It does have charm in other ways. The presentation is very quirky. Some of it is meant to resemble old terminal stations. When you fire up the game, you interface menus with function keys! The top screen generally has the actions of the Professor and dog in an 8-bit style, while the bottom screen has what you'd expect of DS visuals. There is a later stage that is a tribute to the Famicom too. It's little details like this where you know the developers were having fun with it. Plus the battles weren't 100% mindless. The bigger bosses required some movement on your part, sometimes with a stylus. They are generally better designed than the usual "initiate attack, watch your HP, heal when needed, enemy dead". Plus the game has a TON of sidequests for all the OCD collectathon people.
When it comes right down to it, Contact is not a great game by anyone's standard. I don't even know if it's average. But somehow, I did not mind playing it. Is that success, then? Perhaps. I only know that I could never recommend it.
Role Playing Game - Nintendo DS
Battery Backup - 3 saves
1 player / Multi wifi
"Things you WON'T find in Contact: A dull moment. Normalcy. A guy with spikey hair and/or amnesia. Dramatic monologues. The same battles you've been fighting since the 16 bit era.
Things you WILL find in Contact: Monkeys. Cosmic terrorists. Powerful attack stickers. Fishing. Cooking. Humor. Fun with Nintendo Wi-Fi. Deeper meaning in life. (Results may vary.) Costumes that increase your power and make you more fun to be around."
That is the description on the back of the box. Although the assertions are not entirely incorrect, I'm not sure if I got what I wanted either.
Let's start with "the same battles you've been fighting since the 16 bit era". True to form, Contact isn't like Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy and the like. Instead, it mirrors old western style RPGs like MUDs or whatever where you simply initiate the attack, and every "turn" you'll automatically attack until you or the enemy dies. You could stop your attacking, but then the enemy would just pursue you and hit you all the while. You could bring up a menu screen and use items. Or you can use one of your special attacks/magic spells. That's the extent of the fighting. It's simple, but ... not particularly involving.
How about "Dramatic monologues"? There isn't much of that either, but instead, there's this hokey interaction between the on-screen characters and you, the player. While this has been done before in Panzer Dragoon Saga, it's a bit patronizing here because they constantly talk to you. It's very childish and won't let you forget you're playing a game.
And believe me, "dull moment"s are not in short supply. The overall plot is a simple one: collect all the crystals, so the Professor character can pilot his ship into space. The crystals are spread out on multiple areas, and are guarded by bosses. Shoe string plots don't bother me, but as I mentioned earlier, gameplay is not its strongest suit. The combat is so un-involving that you don't actually do a whole lot in the game. And that's the biggest weakness. You're just moving a character through the motions.
Combine lack of control with tedium and you get the rest of the game. Many of the systems the game has to offer: fishing, cooking, etc is just plain tedious. Leveling up happens in real time. As you get hit, you build up defense and vitality. As you cast water spells, you gain in that affinity. Each stat levels up individually so in a single attack, you could level up two different stats at once. But while often used stats are fairly fluid in their improvement, things like cooking are cumbersome. You can only level up your cooking stat by cooking. You can only use your cooking skill at designated locations. You only have cooking skill when you're in the Chef outfit. You can only change into your Chef outfit on your ship. There's so many limitations that unless you have the right costume at the right time, you end up having to go places twice. Or thrice.
Still, despite all its problems, Contact is not a complete wash. It does have charm in other ways. The presentation is very quirky. Some of it is meant to resemble old terminal stations. When you fire up the game, you interface menus with function keys! The top screen generally has the actions of the Professor and dog in an 8-bit style, while the bottom screen has what you'd expect of DS visuals. There is a later stage that is a tribute to the Famicom too. It's little details like this where you know the developers were having fun with it. Plus the battles weren't 100% mindless. The bigger bosses required some movement on your part, sometimes with a stylus. They are generally better designed than the usual "initiate attack, watch your HP, heal when needed, enemy dead". Plus the game has a TON of sidequests for all the OCD collectathon people.
When it comes right down to it, Contact is not a great game by anyone's standard. I don't even know if it's average. But somehow, I did not mind playing it. Is that success, then? Perhaps. I only know that I could never recommend it.
Saturday, December 08, 2007
Devil May Cry 3 Special Edition
Devil May Cry 3 Special Edition
Stylish Action - Playstation 2
Memory Card - 8 saves
1 player
Delays are temporary, mediocrity is forever.
Probably the only thing I liked about Working Designs is that quote from Vic Ireland. What does that have to do with DMC3? Not a whole lot, actually - other than the part about mediocrity.
Devil May Cry 3's main claim to fame is its combo system. You can equip two weapons and two guns, and there's a lot of flexibility to chain long strings of combos and juggle opponents into oblivion. One button is reserved for your gun attacks and another is for your melee weapon, so it's easy to manage. Also appreciated is the ability to switch to your other weapon/gun on-the-fly with a single button press. Everything is very fluid.
The only problem is that the game doesn't revolve around the combo system. The game IS the combo system.
DMC3 is broken up into stages. Littered throughout the stages are tons of enemies to fight. But the enemies exist only as fodder for you to juggle. They are not very powerful, nor do they require much pattern recognition. The game just surrounds you with enemies and lets you do your stuff. Then there's the half-assed platforming. The combination of loose controls and dramatic camera angle changes make the platforming a chore. Perhaps Capcom chose right by not making platforming a key ingredient in the game. But in the end, the enemies and the stages themselves feel like they're there just to pad the game and hold you over until the boss fights.
But what incredible bosses there are. Easily, the best part of the game, they will have you tearing your hair out in frustration. That's exactly the type of game I like. The bosses are ruthless and have very limited opportunities to strike. The difficulty forces you to utilize every technique from running to chaining combos to double jumping in order to win. It's the only part of the game that feels like you're playing a game.
I do not understand why developers have forgotten how to make a proper game that is engaging throughout. Sure, normal enemies were never on the level of bosses, but the padding in DMC3 is a bit too much. Unless you're the type of person who gets off of watching yourself pull off 30 hit combos on defenseless enemies, the experience is rather empty in between boss fights.
I have not even begun to discuss the other elements that bring DMC3 down like the awful camera that loves to obscure your view so that most of your enemies are off-screen, or the fact that the entire game takes place inside of "rooms", or the pathetic combination of over-the-top cheese and forced melodrama.
Devil May Cry 3 is a one trick pony. But I don't particularly enjoy the trick. The combo flexibility means that instead of mindlessly executing 5-button combinations, you slightly-less-mindlessly execute 20-button combinations. That's hardly my idea of fun, and does little to pass the time between one boss fight and the next. DMC3 is strictly for the ADD crowd.
Stylish Action - Playstation 2
Memory Card - 8 saves
1 player
Delays are temporary, mediocrity is forever.
Probably the only thing I liked about Working Designs is that quote from Vic Ireland. What does that have to do with DMC3? Not a whole lot, actually - other than the part about mediocrity.
Devil May Cry 3's main claim to fame is its combo system. You can equip two weapons and two guns, and there's a lot of flexibility to chain long strings of combos and juggle opponents into oblivion. One button is reserved for your gun attacks and another is for your melee weapon, so it's easy to manage. Also appreciated is the ability to switch to your other weapon/gun on-the-fly with a single button press. Everything is very fluid.
The only problem is that the game doesn't revolve around the combo system. The game IS the combo system.
DMC3 is broken up into stages. Littered throughout the stages are tons of enemies to fight. But the enemies exist only as fodder for you to juggle. They are not very powerful, nor do they require much pattern recognition. The game just surrounds you with enemies and lets you do your stuff. Then there's the half-assed platforming. The combination of loose controls and dramatic camera angle changes make the platforming a chore. Perhaps Capcom chose right by not making platforming a key ingredient in the game. But in the end, the enemies and the stages themselves feel like they're there just to pad the game and hold you over until the boss fights.
But what incredible bosses there are. Easily, the best part of the game, they will have you tearing your hair out in frustration. That's exactly the type of game I like. The bosses are ruthless and have very limited opportunities to strike. The difficulty forces you to utilize every technique from running to chaining combos to double jumping in order to win. It's the only part of the game that feels like you're playing a game.
I do not understand why developers have forgotten how to make a proper game that is engaging throughout. Sure, normal enemies were never on the level of bosses, but the padding in DMC3 is a bit too much. Unless you're the type of person who gets off of watching yourself pull off 30 hit combos on defenseless enemies, the experience is rather empty in between boss fights.
I have not even begun to discuss the other elements that bring DMC3 down like the awful camera that loves to obscure your view so that most of your enemies are off-screen, or the fact that the entire game takes place inside of "rooms", or the pathetic combination of over-the-top cheese and forced melodrama.
Devil May Cry 3 is a one trick pony. But I don't particularly enjoy the trick. The combo flexibility means that instead of mindlessly executing 5-button combinations, you slightly-less-mindlessly execute 20-button combinations. That's hardly my idea of fun, and does little to pass the time between one boss fight and the next. DMC3 is strictly for the ADD crowd.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Final Fantasy V Advance
Final Fantasy V Advance
RPG - Gameboy Advance
Battery Backup - 4 saves
1 player
I admit. I have a soft spot for the original Final Fantasy. Maybe it's the nostalgia or maybe it's the competition at the time, but it was the game that got me into jRPGs. And that's about all I play now. I loved having a party of characters. That opened up a lot of strategic options not previously available in games like Dragon Quest/Warrior, where you were only a single person. I loved how it offered a bunch of different classes, each very unique in the abilities they had. I loved being able to choose your party members to make your party the way you want to play. It gave you some customization options to cater the game to your playing style. FFV is an evolution of those original ideas. I played the original FFV on Super Famicom and fell in love. Unfortunately, I got sidetracked in the middle of playing it, so I only got about half-way through before the owner took it back. When Square decided to port this game to the GBA, I knew I had to have it. And sure enough, the magic was still there. Final Fantasy V is without a doubt the best FF I've played. But is that enough?
If an epic, well-read storyline is what you're after, look elsewhere. FFV is only slightly more deep than the plot of the first game, meaning it's not very deep at all. It's simply a bare-bones structure to keep the game going. I don't mind it at all. It makes no pretenses about what it is, which is refreshing. Modern RPGs have a lot more dialog and more fleshed out characters. But that doesn't make them any higher quality - just more wordy. Nevertheless, even in its simplicity, FFV does have a hokey script. It's almost embarassing. But thankfully, storyline is not the only thing FFV offers.
The meat of FFV is its class system. When you begin the game, your characters are "Freelancers", meaning no specific class. But as you progress, you'll be able to change any of your characters to any of the available classes by just opening up the status menu. Classes have their own inherent abilities, menu commands, stats, and upgrades. Change a party member to a Thief, and automatically their stats change to emphasize speed & agility. In addition, when traversing the overworld, you're now able to run at double speed and you can detect invisible paths to boot. In fights, your Thief character has an additional option: Steal. So now your thief can steal items instead of attacking an enemy.
While this system is very cool in of itself, FFV takes it a step further. When you win battles, you win your normal EXP which improves your stats. But in addition, you win AP (ability points) that level up the class you're currently using. The Thief, when leveled up, eventually learns Mug - an upgrade of Steal that combines an Attack with Steal. Pretty cool, huh? The kicker of FFV is... many of these abilities can be transferred. Once you've learned Mug, you can switch your class to a White Mage. Now your stats are biased towards magic usage (magic defense up, physical strength down) and you can use White magic to heal party members, etc. But equip the White Mage with the Mug ability, and now you've got a little Thief-flavor too. The possibilities are endless. A Black Mage that can cast Black & White magic. A Blue Mage that learns the opponents' spells, but has a barehanded attack like a Monk. It is this level of customization that separates FFV from other examples in the genre. And it's fun! Experiment with different combinations to try out strategies and see what works best for you.
The only problem is that it's still a Final Fantasy. I like a lot of ideas in FFV, and I found myself really enjoying it. But as I played on, it wasn't enough to overpower the shortcomings of the series. At every turn, it still reeked of FF: the tedium of random battles, the same rehash of a simplistic combat system, the lack of strategic thinking. It's a good take on a generic mundane RPG, but it's a generic mundane RPG nevertheless. So I found myself wavering between having fun and being bored out of my mind all the time. Unfortunately, boredom won out in the later parts of the game.
As far as the GBA conversion goes, I couldn't really tell any deficiencies. There's four new classes for FFVa that the original didn't have, which is a nice bonus. But having maxed out three of them (the fourth is not available until 2nd playthrough), they're really unnecessary, and I personally wouldn't use them in my party. There's also a long bonus dungeon for the OCD type. Nice extras though, for those who dig the game.
So there you have it: The best Final Fantasy is still a Final Fantasy. I cannot wait to play one that's not. FFXII is on my queue.
RPG - Gameboy Advance
Battery Backup - 4 saves
1 player
I admit. I have a soft spot for the original Final Fantasy. Maybe it's the nostalgia or maybe it's the competition at the time, but it was the game that got me into jRPGs. And that's about all I play now. I loved having a party of characters. That opened up a lot of strategic options not previously available in games like Dragon Quest/Warrior, where you were only a single person. I loved how it offered a bunch of different classes, each very unique in the abilities they had. I loved being able to choose your party members to make your party the way you want to play. It gave you some customization options to cater the game to your playing style. FFV is an evolution of those original ideas. I played the original FFV on Super Famicom and fell in love. Unfortunately, I got sidetracked in the middle of playing it, so I only got about half-way through before the owner took it back. When Square decided to port this game to the GBA, I knew I had to have it. And sure enough, the magic was still there. Final Fantasy V is without a doubt the best FF I've played. But is that enough?
If an epic, well-read storyline is what you're after, look elsewhere. FFV is only slightly more deep than the plot of the first game, meaning it's not very deep at all. It's simply a bare-bones structure to keep the game going. I don't mind it at all. It makes no pretenses about what it is, which is refreshing. Modern RPGs have a lot more dialog and more fleshed out characters. But that doesn't make them any higher quality - just more wordy. Nevertheless, even in its simplicity, FFV does have a hokey script. It's almost embarassing. But thankfully, storyline is not the only thing FFV offers.
The meat of FFV is its class system. When you begin the game, your characters are "Freelancers", meaning no specific class. But as you progress, you'll be able to change any of your characters to any of the available classes by just opening up the status menu. Classes have their own inherent abilities, menu commands, stats, and upgrades. Change a party member to a Thief, and automatically their stats change to emphasize speed & agility. In addition, when traversing the overworld, you're now able to run at double speed and you can detect invisible paths to boot. In fights, your Thief character has an additional option: Steal. So now your thief can steal items instead of attacking an enemy.
While this system is very cool in of itself, FFV takes it a step further. When you win battles, you win your normal EXP which improves your stats. But in addition, you win AP (ability points) that level up the class you're currently using. The Thief, when leveled up, eventually learns Mug - an upgrade of Steal that combines an Attack with Steal. Pretty cool, huh? The kicker of FFV is... many of these abilities can be transferred. Once you've learned Mug, you can switch your class to a White Mage. Now your stats are biased towards magic usage (magic defense up, physical strength down) and you can use White magic to heal party members, etc. But equip the White Mage with the Mug ability, and now you've got a little Thief-flavor too. The possibilities are endless. A Black Mage that can cast Black & White magic. A Blue Mage that learns the opponents' spells, but has a barehanded attack like a Monk. It is this level of customization that separates FFV from other examples in the genre. And it's fun! Experiment with different combinations to try out strategies and see what works best for you.
The only problem is that it's still a Final Fantasy. I like a lot of ideas in FFV, and I found myself really enjoying it. But as I played on, it wasn't enough to overpower the shortcomings of the series. At every turn, it still reeked of FF: the tedium of random battles, the same rehash of a simplistic combat system, the lack of strategic thinking. It's a good take on a generic mundane RPG, but it's a generic mundane RPG nevertheless. So I found myself wavering between having fun and being bored out of my mind all the time. Unfortunately, boredom won out in the later parts of the game.
As far as the GBA conversion goes, I couldn't really tell any deficiencies. There's four new classes for FFVa that the original didn't have, which is a nice bonus. But having maxed out three of them (the fourth is not available until 2nd playthrough), they're really unnecessary, and I personally wouldn't use them in my party. There's also a long bonus dungeon for the OCD type. Nice extras though, for those who dig the game.
So there you have it: The best Final Fantasy is still a Final Fantasy. I cannot wait to play one that's not. FFXII is on my queue.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)