Oh Vacation...

So I found myself on vacation last week and instead of continuing with the Summer of Phantasy Star (which will happen) I wound up playing through Dragon Quest V for the DS. Strike that. I suckered myself into playing Dragon Quest V for the DS. You see, while my experiences with the DQ series isn't that extensive, every time I think it may be a good idea to start one, I find myself bored stupid within the first few hours of the game. Somehow, somehow, I slog through it anyway to completion; all the while thinking to myself, "they can't possibly take this game that much further if this is all it is". And there I sit; wrong every time.

I'm not a very vocal opponent of the DQ series, really. I respect that it's big business in Japan and that the original Dragon Quest is the founding father of what we know as console RPGs. But after decades of development and various sequels and spin offs, there just isn't that much of a clear evolution of the series outside of aesthetics. In fact, you could say that the DQ series represents everything wrong with console role playing on a technical level: you find yourself in a location, locate the nearest town, level grind, conquer a dungeon, get to the next town or location. That's it. There's a story in there someplace, but really, in an endless cycle of RPG rinse-and-repeat it gets pretty meaningless awfully fast. They make me feel every minute of the experience as opposed to sweeping me off of my feet like, say, many Final Fantasy games try to (in their way, I suppose).

But wait! Are Final Fantasy games -the only real competitor to the Dragon Quest series (even though they're published by the same company- better? Why do 2.3 million people buy DQ games in the first week? Why do Americans tend to drift more to what seems more Final and less, um, Dragon-y? So after some brief bathroom meditation, I present you the major differences between Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy and what, potentially, might make the former better than the latter (at least to those wacky Japanese, God love 'em).

1. The Plot is Rarely Incomprehensible Trash It seemed unfair to rag on Dragon Quest V for being as straight up as it is, or really, the entire franchise. Never has an amnesiac kid from an orphanage (built by his future enemy) grown to wield unreasonably absurd weapons before massive plot twists happen (because he was the dream of dead people all along). While there's something to be said about more involved stories -and really, the FF games have them- DQ games are all about one thing: good guys and bad guys. And I'm gonna make those bad guys pay. Over time, it's fair to say that the Final Fantasy franchise has tried to outdo itself with each numeric entry, only to have their epic and grandiose stories fall flat by the end. Sure, there are tons of those that love a specific FF game and its cast of characters, but they just end up trying too hard to be transcendent of its genre. Not DQ, where it's just a fun romp through a fantasy world. I have to respect that.
   
2. The Mini Games and Side Quests Are Just That Too often, Final Fantasy games either end after several (meaning multiples of 10) hours of backtracking and side questing for either completion's sake or to find those crazy extra weapons that, in reality, take away all semblance of challenge anyway. The newer entries are worse offenders than others (I'm looking at you, FFXII), but the focus is just about lost when the end is nigh. Now, I'm completely behind wanting consumers to get their money's worth out of your product, but Dragon Quest V had, perhaps, 2-3 real side quests to it. This meant that I, in absolutely no way, was going to overpower the end boss and finish the game as a god. After a whole lot of RPG conditioning, I was pretty put off by this, but when it finally came down to killing the end boss with just my wits and what was left over in my inventory, it was pretty satisfying delivering the killing blow, and just as exciting that all of my party members lived through the fight. That, friends, is a sense of accomplishment.
3. Charm That's right, charm. While some of the recent FF games have been much, much better about this, I find myself reflecting my ire a little and blaming them for everything that's wrong with console RPGs on an artistic level. Overly cheesy and ridiculously chirpy anime characters were built by the dynasty that is Final Fantasy while Dragon Quest is perfectly content remaining as, basically, a somewhat British adventure drawn by manga legend Akira Toriyama. Characters speak in cockney accents and the setting is always decidedly medieval. Sure, credit is due to the Final Fantasy games as evolving popular RPG tropes past sword-and-sorcery, but it's a little difficult to give too much respect to them knowing how absurd those settings and stories are now. Final Fantasy XIII, whenever the fuck it comes out, seems to be basically Final Fantasy VII with a fresh coat of paint and a unwieldy- sounding combat system (it may sound like I'm judging it, but I'm not). Final Fantasy games can't fall back on their simple charm anymore, and Dragon Quest will/ does, and it works for them.

So thems the berries. I'm still very excited for FFXIII when it launches next year, and probably won't start playing another DQ game anytime soon. But it does go to show that it pays to step back and be a bit more critical.

SOS

I'm modding a super old Hori Fighting Stick PS from, like, 15 years ago. I need to drop some new buttons into it, but it has a really specific wiring harness. The buttons looks like these pictures. Anyone have any ideas?

RE5

For the two or three of you that want to know what I think of Resident Evil 5, you can read my review at twingalaxies.com. Dig it

Why All Heroes Should Be Named "Chaz"

Phantasy Star IV is a game of sunny disposition. It starts off kind of fun and lighthearted and ends on a serious high note. As stupid as this is going to sound, this made my return trip to the game after several years ...well, kind of lame. After blasting through PS2 a few weeks ago (which, I'll remind you, was hard as shit) and taking into account how that game ended, I guess I was expecting some deep layers of ennui that I might have overlooked when finishing PS4 at a tender young age. This isn't the case. Sure, bad stuff happens in this game (dude, Alys gets killed. KILLED) and the universe sure as shootin' needs a bit of saving, but I never felt like life was just plain out to get me. PS2 was cool in that respect, I guess, and PS4 is kind of mundane because of it. But, for all intents and purpose, PS4 is still really f-ing good.

One gets the impression that series architect Rieko Kodama was probably at the end of her rope trying to make good games for SEGA (knowing the she would one day produce the deuce that is Project Altered Beast) and knew that the PS series would fall into the wrong hands (it has) and pretty much wrapped up everything she knew to be good with the series. What this all boils down to is that PS1,2, and 4 represent a trillogy in what the Algol star system is, its relationship with series antagonist Dark Force, and how everything is pretty much cyclical after a millennium. What that means to you and me is a game that elegantly touches upon plot elements of all three games while trying to tell its own story and refining PS2's game play. The graphics and sound are significantly improved over its predecessors (and a vast majority of its contemporaries), it's battle speed was amped up and adjustable (!) to ease through game pace issues, and its cut scenes are probably the most brilliant example of low-rent genius in that they simply use comic book frames that layer on top of each other when something new happens. And it was long without feeling grating, something a lot of other games could do think about, especially today.

Really, there really isn't much for me to say about PS4 that hasn't already been said by about a 1000 other people, which should also tell you that it's really, really good. Finding a copy for the Genesis is pretty easy through eBay and other means, and the Wii's Virtual Console has it for the low, low price of eight bucks. It's also represented on the Sonic Genesis collection for 360 and Playstation 3, so go getcha some. PS4 was intended to be remade through the previously mentioned SEGA Ages label in Japan but was dropped sometime during its development in favor of putting out a collection of the initial four entries in one Playstation 2 set. Of course, this was all Japan-only anyway, so you and I probably wouldn't have to sweat it.

Next up on the Summer of Phantasy Star is me forcing myself to either beat PS1 (also really f-ing hard) or to slog through PS3 (which really isn't that bad, just not that good). Eventually I'm going to have to make the hard decision of whether or not find English fan translations of PS Gaiden and PS Adventure, both for the Japanese Game Gear, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. I already feel as though I've screwed myself by playing the two shining entries of the initial series first, but I'm trying to hold judgment until August 31st rolls around. Keep the faith.

Bidnes

Recently, I agreed to write reviews and some features over at Twin Galaxies' website, the first of which is a review for recent WiiWare addition, Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. It seems that my thoughts on the game are mostly in line with other reviews that I have read (if I were to boil it down for you, I'd probably give it a B+), but some are pretty wildly different. While I know that no two people can totally agree on anything, I'm finding a morbid fascination in how some (*cough*cough*Gamespot*cough*) rag on the game and my reaction to those reviews, especially now that I'm not so far removed from game magazine websites like IGN or Gamespot. This, in no way, is me knocking anybody's website or the reviewers that write for them, but I really expected Lark Anderson to like it a little more than a 5.5. But again, that's just me.

Though this does seem like a good point to mention that Gamespot has seemed a little more harsh in their reviews over the past year or so than I seem to remember. I'm too lazy to actually do the research to see if this is fact or not, but some games look like they get slightly lower total scores from CBS-er Gamespot than many of the other major sites. Then again, being a little more citical never really hurt anybody, I guess. So carry on, Lark Anderson, and go ahead and save CNet's Wii Points for something else.

Phun Phriday Phantasy Phunk

Yesterday, I decided to return to one of my other great white whales of gaming: Phantasy Star II. See, as a young'n that bought a Sega Genesis fairly shortly after it was released, I had a real need to try anything and everything that I could, so my brothers and I would rent games at least once a week. This was also right about the time that I had played Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy for the first time with my friends, so now that the threshold had been crossed, I was much more willing to give some games that I wouldn't have normally touched the time of day. Now that I had some context to what a traditional RPG was like, playing Phantasy Star II was like going from Metropolis to The Jazz Singer. Over the years I would rent it numerous times, not really getting too far into it (late fees are scary). When I eventually got heavily interested in collecting sometime in the late 90s, I wound up with a boxed copy and began to really give it the time it deserved. One day it all came crashing down; after about 2/3rds of the way through, the battery back up in the cartridge took a shit (which I actually thought of doing on said cartridge at the time) and erased my game and I haven't gone back to it since. A few days ago, I was speaking to a friend of mine on how a few years ago I had the Summer of Shining Force where I plowed through as many SF games as I could to get a perspective on the franchise. This summer will thusly be the Summer of Phantasy Star, so I started, essentially, where I stopped.

Graphically (which was what might have been one of the more important things to an 11 year-old), the extra visual touches like overlays in the dungeons and colors to the expansive over world were a sight to see, but the smooth animation of the enemies and characters during combat was striking. Really, the FF and DW, what animation there was ended up being minimal at best. In PS2, not only would enemies wind up before spitting shit at you, but you actually saw your purple anime coiffed female lead gear up and slash through that same enemy with a pair of claws. The sound, while not even that much to write home about then, was still above its predecessors in that Genesis synth beeping was very neat for the time, but not dynamic or particularly amazing. What gave the game its charm was its overall presentation. Characters have character portraits when and hold conversations with each other at certain places, and actual (albeit primitive) cut scenes where at important story beats making it, basically, the most immersive game since Ninja Gaiden where cut scenes where made common.

Somewhat also like Ninja Gaiden, then, is the fact that the game is hard as shit. Seriously, it's a kick you in the face and drive you to the nuthouse difficult. Enemies gang up on you pretty quickly after leaving the starting area of the game, forcing you to level constantly. This leveling also gets you used to saving your pennies because, like a gay bar in Detroit (don't ask), everything is expensive. When you want to upgrade your entire party's weapons and armor, get yourself a sixer and make some pizza rolls because you're not going anywhere for hours. The dungeons are particularly insidious: multileveled back tracking, pit traps, mostly useless treasure inside of them, mobs of difficult monsters out to get you, and little or no direction from NPCs as a guide mean that you need the drive of a marathon runner and Apollo Creed as your corner man to complete the game with any of your sanity left. At the time of release, the game came packaged with a walkthrough booklet that had maps of the entire game inside, but that didn't necessarily make life easier. The dungeons were so complex that without carefully planning where you were going ahead of time you were left to wander within them aimlessly for hours and, sure as shit, you were going to run out of valuable medical supplies if that was the initiative you were going to take.

But all of that stuff above doesn't hold a candle to the freakish slow pace of everything. Because the game was so well animated (at least, that's where I lay blame), the combat absolutely drags out. With a frame skipper or other form of emulation that spikes the speed of combat, PS2 can take a measly 10 hours instead of probably three times that. It crawls.

The biggest plus, though, is the setting and story. Really, Phantasy Star II is a bleak game. Ok, it's really fucking bleak. Follow me here, because here's the whole plot: The game takes place in the Algol star system (as all Phantasy Star games do) which consists of three planets, Palma, Dezolis, and Motavia. Your character, Rolf, is an young agent of the Motavian government that is haunted by recurring nightmares which happen to be the ending of Phantasy Star 1, which takes place an entire millennium beforehand. Anyway, it turns out that Motavia used to be a desert planet that was terraformed to lush pleasantness with the help of a massive computer called Mother Brain in the time between the two games. Bio monsters are starting to overrun this utopia, so Rolf is assigned by the government to find out what's what. He takes his adorable little half human, half bio monster companion, Nei, with him and it turns out, through a series of wacky, slapstick adventures (alright, that's bullshit, nothing is wacky or slapsticky in this game or, really, life) you find that the cause of the bio monster outbreak is a failed biological experiment called Neifirst that happens to be the evil half of your buddy Nei. Neifirst was so pissed off at humanity that she constructed all of the baddies in a bio systems lab and unleashed them throughout the world. Neifirst then proceeds to kill Nei for the rest of the game (which sucks). After the lab blows up, the monsters of the world are gone (which is good!), but are replaced by an army of robots bent on killing you specifically (which sucks) because Mother Brain branded you as a terrorist. Eventually, the robots catch you and throw you in an outer space penal colony so someone -or something- can use you as a patsy because the penal colony smashes into Palma (the setting of the first PS game, I might add) and blows up the planet. It gets better. After a space pirate saves your ass from jail, you decide to see what's poppin' on Dezolis only to find out that one of the original PS characters has been in some cryo-sleep for however long so he could wake up and tell you that Mother Brain was made for people to be lazy slobs for the rest of eternity and now that it's getting mucked with, it's only a matter of time before the star system sinks into its own despair-fueled destruction. So, being the swell guy that you are, you find your way into the cosmic work station called Noah (where Mother Brain is busy being bad) only to find that a cosmic evil had control of things there which you don't find to be much of a surprise, but it's the same cosmic evil that had control of things in the first game (always back to that) and that it had been biding its time for a thousand years. The big twist is after you do away with that thing, you fight it out with Mother Brain only to ultimately find that an army of Earthlings -yes, the last survivors of our planet- are living on that space station and have constructed Mother Brain because they were slowly taking over the planet anyway. The game ends on kind of a cliffhanger when the whole cast decides to fight all of these guys to the death. The last bit of text in the entire game? "I wonder what the people will see in the final days." Dude. BLEAK.

When you're a kid, stuff like that stays with you. Sure, I didn't finish the game when I was young, but the oppressive murk that hovered over you during your entire journey was obvious to me even then. More so now that I've finally overcome the game, the ending is just plain dark. Still, I have to appreciate that because, especially for the time, video games didn't tell stories like that. They were fun filled treks through mushroom kingdoms and green hilled zones. Somehow, and I'm even more amazed at this accomplishment almost 20 years later, Ps2 found a way to masterfully add gravity to most of its scenarios and situations. This is especially punctuated by the fact that there are only 3 (well, technically 4, but you're supposed to lose one) boss fights in the entire game. When you duke it out with Neifirst, you know that big shit is happening that's going to change the direction of this game, and you're right.

Before recently, Phantasy Star 2 was regarded as something of a real collectible. As one of the real standouts of the early Genesis catalogue, people would search far and wide for it, especially boxed and complete with the afore mentioned strategy guide. I know that when I obtained the game a little over 10 years ago it was going for a hefty amount on the secondary market (though, not as much as, say, M.U.S.H.A.). These days, it's pretty readily available through the Wii's Virtual Console (along with Phantasy Star IV, a superlative game), as well as Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection (along with the rest of the series) for Playstation 3/ XBox 360. It was also released as part of the Phantasy Star Collection for the Japanese Saturn and the GBA in the US, as well as a Dreamcast compilation. With all of these other versions easily obtainable, an original cartridge copy can be obtained pretty cheaply, even though prices on eBay fluctuate wildly. The legacy of the PS2 is really something, though, as it was a seminal step forward in early console RPGs.

To be totally fair, I went back and finished this game because of sentimental value. Someone curious about entries into the genre of yesteryear are going to be put off by its somewhat arcane menu navigating, lousy English translation, and the sheer force of will that necessary in completing it, so it's tough to recommend it to the average person. Still, I sleep a little easier now that I finally put it to rest. Curiously, Sega of Japan had released a remake of the game (along with a remake of PS1) for the Playstation 2 that never materialized in North America under the Sega Ages collection. A shame it didn't end up here, but them's the berries.

Next up on the Summer of Phantasy Star will be PSIV, the most direct sequel. I find that I'll finally force myself to play through III after that knowing that it has little bearing in the overall scheme of the Algol star system. Afterward, I'll blast through the original PS as fast as I can. While I did play PS1 and PS3 before, it was only in passing and didn't have as profound an effect on me since I played them nearly a decade after they were released and I was bit too old to remember them fondly from my youth. Stay tuned, suckas.

Ahoy

Cats and kittens, I'm now doing some writing for Twin Galaxies. They called me and said, "Kidgorilla, we could use your brand of pure rock fury. How 'bout it?" I responded that my fury is pure rock, so I had to accept. Read my reviews at www.twingalaxies.com. My first is for Final Fantasy IV: The After Years.

Cross Up Shenanigans

I love fighting games. Love them. I loved them when I was a kid, and I love them even more now. But, as anybody whom has ever really loved a competitive video game can tell you, there's a breaking point; the part where you start getting pretty good. Sometimes, you start getting a little too good, even. By this, I mean good enough that your friends just don't want to play you any more. After all, you're the guy that sits around and plays it all the time, you're the guy with the opportunity to train, and you're the guy that's more immersed in the experience. Unless you know other people just as devoted to it as you are, you're just going to widen that new found gap.

This turns out to be a downward slide. Sure, there are tons of characters in, say Capcom Vs. SNK 2 to choose from, or maybe you haven't completed all of the sub modes in Soul Calibur 2 through 4, or maybe you find great practice in the survival modes in Tekken Tag, but you're just delaying the inevitable truth; and that truth is the cold realization that no matter how hard it can be sometimes, and how cheap you think Gill is to fight, the computer just not a very good opponent. Ok, now by "good opponent" I can mean a lot of things, but honestly, how fun is it to play a competitive fighting game when you're only really competing against yourself?

Then the zeitgeist started. You know what I'm talking about: the current rebirth of the 2D fighting game scene. It started with Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix and is continuing to supernova with Street Fighter 4. But when you take a clear look at the playing field, you cannot honestly say that the 2D fighting game left. The Guilty Gear series has been going fairly strong since the Playstation One, the Dreamcast, PS2, and Xbox all had ports of Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, and Arcana Heart and Battle Fantasia are both modern day competitive fighters that pre-date SF4. There are tons of great 2D fighters that have been steadily released over the last 10 years to keep the hard core satiated. So what happened? Is it because Capcom finally released a proper Street Fighter sequel that the scene is back in the mainstream? Others have called SF4 more accessible than a lot of the other games out there right now, and it's true; SF4 is a lot more forgiving with its combos and super moves than even HD Remix. But my fiancée can't pull off a Shoryuken, and I bet your kid brother can't either, at least at the onset. You can't tell me that a game with these kinds of complex movement and button mechanics is completely accessible. So what's the straight dope here?

The answer is online fighting. But not just online fighting. Be with me for a second: the Xbox had online fights with SVC Chaos and Street Fighter 3: Third Strike, and the original Street Fighter 2 Turbo showed up on Xbox Live. All of these were massive mistakes. It's not that the games weren't great (except maybe kinda sorta SVC Chaos...), the online play simply wasn't stable. Getting dropped from fights or crippling internet lag makes competitive fighting games require precise movements for higher-tiered play nearly unplayable. Fast forward to today, however, and things are a bit different. Fights are more stable with SF4; you can not only choose your opponents based on their internet settings, but also their perceived skill. Now that games are global and you could logically play against me if you live in the UK and I'm here in North America, a more stable online experience is really turning it around for either the lapsed fighting game Catholic or, at least in my case, their noob loved ones. For me, it was even a weird form of salvation, at least in the beginning. Finally! More than just the computer!

But it still isn't perfect. One cannot do anything about physical distance between players that causes internet hiccups. Capcom still has problems with fights "not counting" in their Championship Mode that takes GP away from you. Even players that are mediocre can tell you that loosing piles of points to someone you know is beneath you due to slow button reaction caused by a lousy internet connection makes you want to throw a cat out of a window.

So there I sat last night with perfect strangers in a beautiful home about 40 minutes from mine. To you, this may sound absurd. To me, it seemed to be the only answer. After playing countless hours of Street Fighter 4, Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix, Soul Calibur 4 and whatever else I can find online (and a few more emulated on a PC from time to time), a level playing field was now a necessity, and a long drive was the only option left. After reading this article over at Gamasutra.com, I was given a new hope and a lot of renewed interest. The article, basically detailing the regional match-making that is becoming more common around the country for guys to get together and play, led me back to the forums at fighting game super source Shoryuken.com which has forums ranging from specific character match strategies (for a variety of games) to how to best modify your custom-built joy pad/ stick. I set myself up with my regional crowd -guys that have been playing together for a couple of years, at least- and the host was very welcoming for new people to pop in. Last night was that first pop.

I expected... well, shit, I had no idea what to expect. One part of me thought it was going to be a bunch of highly elitist dicks: the kinds of guys that I couldn't tell that I've been primarily using a game pad over the last however many years, or that I really don't care for Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 all that much. The other part was worried that we were going to be sitting in some kid's parents' basement ("Mom! MEATLOAF!") and having conversations about anime chicks. Both of those possibilities are weirdly intimidating. The reality, strangely enough, was a mixture of both. The host, let's call him Paul, was a very welcoming and cheerful guy in his early- mid 20's. He shook my hand, greeted me with a smile, and then introduced me to his mother as we walked inside the palace that he called a house and moseyed down the basement. The others, a heavier set African American guy with slammin' hair and fellow of Latino descent, were much quieter, and after we started turning machines on, I found out why. I was fresh meat.

As the host began setting up another TV for HD Remix, the other two guys and I began a winner-stays-looser-walks rotation of SF4. Everyone, not counting me, brought their own sticks with them -some personally customized. Billy, the African American guy, was proficient with just about everyone he used. Probably more so with Balrog and the Shotos, he firmly established himself as king of the hill early on, and he barely spoke a fucking word. Mike, the Latino, brought a newer stick with him and mainly used Sagat, whom would pull of cancelling/ ultra move combos that made my head spin. He played very much like me in that when he lost, he didn't just place blanket blame on the game or the other player as being cheap, he knew it was his own fault if he blew it. It was clear from the second I walked down to that cold, messy (though large enough to fit my entire apartment, maybe twice over) basement that these two guys were going to drop me like a bad habit. I picked up a spare stick to play with, and a little unaccustomed to the controls, I did what I could until I started to learn their play styles so I could adjust mine to compete. These two, though, were all business. I tried to ask questions to get a dialogue going that met with blank stares. I tried to converse about the ins-and-outs of the SF4 game system only to get quick responses. It's not that these guys were off putting, or even just assholes, though. These guys were there to play, not chit chat, and they wanted to see what I was made of.

Things lightened up a bit when Drew, a younger, almost freakishly cheerful guy of Asian lineage arrived with a Hori Real Arcade Pro fight stick (if this is the Cadillac of sticks, the HRAP is probably the Lexus). Now that I was fairly sure that the United Nations was all accounted for and ready to throw down on some Street Fighter, the night went on a little less silently. That is, at least, on the HD Remix side of the room where Drew and Paul were having a great time beating the snot out each other with Dee Jay and Sagat. Things were still a little quiet and tenuous for me until I started to step up my game when I would hear a "nice" thrown out ever now and then. I was beginning to break Mike's Sagat game with my Ken and as my ego was starting to boost his blood pressure was starting to rise, but not maliciously. All of us began to throw out help with tactics for each other, but not enough to tip our hand to the next guy up (you don't want to tell that guy that uses Balrog that you let yourself sit in a corner and bait him, do you? No, you sure as shit don't.).

A few hours, a lot of SF4, and a little Third Strike later, I was out the door with a handshake from Paul and an invitation to come back every Monday night. It's funny, the older I get, the less likely I am to just meet people like this and expand my list of people that play. I can't help but be grateful for the opportunity, but daddy's got some practicing to do. I see your Balrog coming, Billy, and I'm not falling for that Head Butt/ Ultra combo again. At least, not next Monday, I won't.

CCAG 09

Just a shout for the Cleveland Classic Console and Arcade Game show going down on May 23rd from noon until 8. Want to find some wacky old stuff that only your dad's weird uncle remembers (like the Vectrex)? Yeah, there's tons of that shit there. Come on out and support Escape From Rungistan... meaning old games that are still awesome. When you get there, you can go ahead and buy Escape From Rungistan. When you get home and finish Escape From Rungistan, you can go ahead and thank me for putting you in the know. I'll be shimmying around the show myself, so say howdy if you can figure out which one is me...

I can't link to their flyer, so check out their website for details.

It's Charles Bronson Time

Ladies and germs, I'm good and sick of waiting around for Mad Catz to pump out more Street Fighter Tournament Edition sticks. I have no doubt in my mind that having one of these sticks, or an equivalent, will make these two magical hands into those of a master surgeon, and now, steps must be made. The law will have to be taken into these two magical hands. It's time for some lateral thinking.

Thus, this summer, my brother(s) and I will be custom building my own fight stick. Will it look as nuts as the above Akuma stick? Fucks no. That thing's nuts. What it will look like, however, is a double dose of awesome with a whisky chaser (and a 4x4 button design so I can play SF4 and SNK games).

I'll try to document this odyssey as best I can as the weeks and (hopefully not) months roll by. Stay tuned.

Nerdmas? Hmm, Too Dumb A Term To Coin

So last week, Best Buy had an absurd sale on PS3, Wii, 360, and DS games- many of them for about $10. That's right, only ten clams. I, as all three of you that read this might suspect, jumped on this like this chick on Rob Halford. It was little less of a haul than I thought it would be, but you can't deny the power of Only Ten Bucks. Think about it. Would you go see performance art? Punch George Lucas for The Prequels? Go to a Tommy Seebach reunion show? Of course you would if it was Only Ten Bucks.

So there I was, with a couple of Only Ten Bucks on me. Since they didn't have a copy of Devil May Cry 4 for PS3 for OTB, I settled with Lost Planet and Soul Calibur 4. Evidently, they also had copies of Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword for DS on sale, too, but the masterminds at the Best Buy I ended up at hid them from me. Savages.

So Lost Planet. Had I actually lost Lost Planet on my way home, it would have been no loss (see what I did there?). Ok, ok; it's not a terrible game by any stretch, but certainly no gem. Standard run and gun game mechanics apply to what is basically your time on Hoth, just no Han Solo to stuff you into a tauntaun if you really get in the shit. The weapon choices are fairly standard and the plot is downright abusive to my good taste and sensibilities. Still, for Only Ten Bucks? Yeah, worth every penny. Let's break it down:

- I get to blow stuff up. I love making things s'plode, even on Hoth.
- I get to use a grappling hook. Sure, it isn't the most well implemented mechanic in the game (or any game with a grappling hook), but it kinda makes me feel like a ninja. I love ninjas. On Hoth. Believe it.
- I'm more than half way through the game, and that tickles me. See, I usually play long games, and to have one that I have no beef getting rid of as soon as it's finished makes me happy that it's almost over.
- I'm not inclined to play online with it, but it's nice to know that it's there if want it. Options in this regard, are quite swell.

There you have it. I'll never look back on it as a misunderstood classic, but for OTB, it was the bee's knees.

Soul Calibur 4, though? Let's see. I like fighting games. In fact, I like them a lot. So much so, that I won a Tekken 3 tournament in college and got a couch out of the deal (don't get too impressed, it was a nasty couch). So let's make that a mathematical equation:

Enjoyment x (Street Fighter/ Tekken/ King of Fighters)/ Price = Worth It

Notice that Soul Calibur 4 does not factor into the above Euclidean methodology. It very well could be said that the Soul Calibur series is a weapons-based extension of Tekken, but it could also be said that one-armed golfing mosquitoes are invading Poland (read: it just ain't true). Therefore, it was hard to justify my purchase of SC4 prior to last week. After spending a fairly extensive amount of time with it, I find it enormously complicated, even for a weapons-based fighting game. Going through the story mode so I could unlock stuff was fun, but there didn't seem to be any weight to it. Its presentation is insanely pompous, too, which is pretty funny, now that I think about it, but gets old quick. OTB, though? Hurm...

- Lots of a characters, and they's all kindsa wacky. Seriously. Wacky.
- Solid online play. I've been playing more than my share of online fighting games over the last few months, and this is probably the most stable game so far. Then again, I super suck at this game, so it's a little hard to get into it when I know I'm calling a butt kicking down on myself.
- It's pretty. Really, it's a game that's been working out and is now entering a modeling competition. The flip side to that is that certain, how shall we say, design decisions were made as far as females in this game go, and it's just too absurd for me. Just because I'm a dude doesn't mean that I think it's way rad that women strap bowling balls to their chest. Stupid Namco...
- Darth Vader. He was on Hoth once. It all comes together...

Still on the fence about Soul Calibur 4, then. The best part? Say it with me: Only Ten Bucks. While I foresee a trip to my local trade in joint when I get finished unlocking things in SC4 and finally crush Lost Planet, I'll say that this was twenty bones well spent.

How Misery Is Hilarious: Afterthoughts on FFVIII

You know what? I actually did go through Final Fantasy VIII during the weeks following my time with VII. You know what I found? Well, just about the same stuff everybody talks about (and more!), but is worth talking about again. You know what we're gonna do? Talk about them. Your damn right we are...

FFVIII is probably the most polarizing game in the proper franchise for a lot of reasons. Probably the first and foremost of these is its enormously complex stat boosting system. Known in the game as "junctioning", the player is forced to draw magic spells from enemies and assign (junction) them to their statistics. The more of the same spell you have junctioned (up to 100), the better the stat becomes. The more powerful the spell combined with the amount you have (100 Fire spells aren't half as good as 100 Flares, and so on), the stat becomes that much stronger. Bearing all of this in mind, getting your head firmly wrapped around this early on can make the game either a snap or a total drag. Specifically, drawing magic spells out of your enemies is so tedious that it makes you long for the time when you could just step on those fools and move on. In this game, each new enemy that you encounter (and in the overworld you will encounter a lot. The encounter rate here can get astronomical) must be checked to see if they have something that you want, and then you have to play the cat and mouse game of drawing their magic while you stay alive.

The second major problem with junctioning, and one my biggest beefs with the game in general, is it's stance on experience points. See, since you are allocating abundant resources to your stats (magic can be found all over the place, so it's relatively easy to find stat boosts through good junctions), the typical RPG growth system of accumulating experience points for level boosts is far less meaningful as you only get minor upgrades to base character statistics. That, really, is small potatoes to the real problem: ENEMIES LEVEL WITH YOU. It doesn't matter if it's the first slug you fought or the boss of the super secret dungeon (or whatever), if you don't have a lot of strong magic junctioned to you, you're going to get your ass kicked eventually on no matter how high leveled you are. What this essentially means is that the game forces you to accept it on its own terms. You are forced to make good use of the junction system, or you will succumb to the hell of 1000 Game Over screens.

How do I know this? Well, here's a story: a few years ago, when I played this game for the first time, I didn't follow a guide and let myself carelessly meander through the game. At first, it was fun getting to know the little ins and outs of the game world and powering up my Guardian Forces (summon spells in this game, which are also tied to junctions). Since the in-game tutorials were vague on little things (like strengthening junctions) and noticeably silent on others (ENEMIES LEVEL WITH YOU. Stupid.), I found myself spamming GF monsters incessantly. This was not only a totally boring way to play the game (those GF monster animations are long and repetitive), but it tied my hands in certain key endgame battles since I either couldn't use them or they weren't strong enough anyway. So there I sat, capped at level 100 with my characters, and consistently getting my ass handed to me by the final boss of the game. It's been my white whale ever since.

Now, the other side to this game system is how easily it can be exploited under the right circumstances. After doing the right amount of research, one can pretty easily blast through the beginning of the game (after obtaining some almost unfair early-game junctionable magic) and bide their time until near the end where they can easily grab all of the high-level magic, and then crack the whole thing wide open. Hell, that's what I did this time around, and it pretty much turned into a joke. Just goes to show how the internet proves yet again that it's always smarter than you were while in college.

FFVIII has many other noticeable faults. For one, every bit of it bleeds the word "excessive". Every battle that you fight starts with an unnecessary amount of zoomed and panned camera angles and pre-fight battle animations. While it may have seemed like a clever way to mask loading times back then seems like trite wastes of time now. The plot, also, takes far too long to get its feet on the ground. True, this is more of a character-driven story than some of the other Final Fantasy games, but much of events of the game are wrapped up way to easily near the end. Without giving anything away, it seemed that the solution to everyone's problems probably could have been thought of at the end of disk one, and that would have been the end of that. Sure, part of the fun of playing through games like this is to see how things fall together, but it was almost near the end of disk 3 (of 4) where it seemed like there was any cohesion to the story, and then it was over.

Then again, it has other differences compared to the FF pantheon that makes it just priceless. For one, main character Squall is a dick. I don't mean an angsty, somewhat self absorbed loner jerk like FFVII's Cloud and countless other main characters that came after him, I mean he's an absolute asshole. Now, I can see how people don't like this, but seeing a main character be so much of a detached chump was just hilarious. If every RPG character has "'tude", Squall has a nearly incurable attitude PROBLEM. What's better is that when he finally loses his cool later in the game, it has so many exclamation marks after his sentences that I feel a little cheated that there wasn't any voice acting. I love hearing pretty boy JRPG characters scream at the top of their lungs. That kind of comedy is a reason to wake up everyday.

After playing through Final Fantasy VII, I'm that much more impressed by the graphics. To be fair, Playstation One games do not age well as character models were large and blocky (at one point, I think a character was holding a clipboard. Or maybe it was a green sandwich. Or perhaps an Alaskan fish...), but the backgrounds still look spectacular decade later, and the fully rendered cut scenes -for the most part- still look great. The opening cinematic stands tall as a great set piece, and the fire fight in the Ragnarok late in the game is amazing. Even in their strange form, the characters animate pretty well and have realistic motions to them; all a huge step up from VII two years earlier.

So there you have it. Time has not been especially kind to FFVIII in terms of how some of it looks and how some of it plays, but what it got right almost makes the whole experience worth it. I truth, the whole game feels like a mish mash of really good ideas that just didn't equate to a cohesive whole. Then again, if you were ever inclined to find out for yourself, you can grab a copy of it in good shape pretty easily for under $20. After the last few weeks, I'd actually say it's worth it.

Here's a pretty interesting article for some further reading. As always, Gametrailers.com (which seems to be down at the moment) has a really well researched video retrospective, but it's squished in with Final Fantasy IX which, while fun, isn't worth getting into. Have a good weekend, fools.

The Chubbies

So it seems that Sony's corporate ninja squad will find me and do mean things to my own corporate ninja squad if I divulge toooooo much about Fat Princess. I love my ninjas, so I'll comply, but not before saying that I'm having lots of fun with the game and the beta process is really easy. I play the game and I post my thoughts, much like here. Only there, it's read by worker bees whereas here, it's read by... um...well more worker bees.

Shit. Walked right into that one.

Fat Princess

Cats and Kittens, I've been selected to be one of the Fat Princess beta testers. That's right, I'll be feeding cake to skinny fantasy chicks while my workers toss bombs at walls and build ladders (or whatever). More updates to follow with my thoughts on not only the game, but also the beta test process. This being the first one I've been in (not counting free MMOs when I'm ... oh, hell, I'll say it: when I'm cold and alone), I'm pretty curious to see how it all works.

Stay tuned

Oh, Times; You Is A-Changin' 5

Ok this is the end of it. Strangely, FFVII got posted on the Japanese Playstation Network 2 days after this post. No, I don't work for a viral marketing company trying to pimp games with spiky-headed characters (not that they even need it), I'm just a step ahead of all of you. So there.

And before you start giving me shit, Mr. mrbenning, this was copied from a fugly MySpace page
so the spacings and things are screwed up. Stinking M'space


4/8/09

The Last Word

So in lieu of my computer deep frying on me, let’s try this again…

So after a few weeks with Final Fantasy VII and finishing the game for the first time in 10+ years, I initially felt uneasy about how things turned out while still being satisfied. While not the transcendent classic that others remember it by, it’s
fair to say that FFVII is still a pretty good game now a decade removed.

How good? Let’s take a compartmented look.

Plot/Characters....

Taken as a whole, the pacing issues that I have been mentioning
through the last week or two coincide with some of bigger problems with the
overall story. Basically, it’s pretty much just Cloud’s show with a little bit
of Tifa thrown in at the end to give it some heart, making the ensemble ending
pointless. Then again, that pointlessness is even discounted by the fact that
you’re pretty much given nothing in terms of resolution for any character
outside of Red XIII in the ending, but let’s get back to the first concern.
Since I was able to select from individual characters throughout the vast
majority of the game, I only really got insight into many situations based on
which characters were in my active party whether I liked them or not. So if you
hate using, say Yuffie, but she seemed practical for you to fight with, you
probably went through the next story sequence with her and heard her gripe
about something. Most of the time, I found that pretty perturbing; sure, Yuffie
was a strong long-ranged character through most of the game, but the plot would
have been much better had Tifa been in my active party- even though I stopped
using her early and found her to be worthless by the end.

Then again, the interactions I had with the individual main
characters were fun and pretty well realized. Cloud serves as a pretty good
protagonist, even though he is blandly single minded as the game carries on
(“There’s Sephiroth! Let’s go get him!”). Tifa unexpectedly adds a lot of soul
to an otherwise mundane video game story near the end, and turned out to be a
pretty refreshing change compared to the rest of the clichés that just about
everyone else were. The real jewel here is Cid. From the first time you meet
him through the end credits, he was such a jerk that I had to love him. Even
though I found his motivation for joining the team a little thin and I kind of
think it was harsh the way he treated some of the other characters, he didn’t
degenerate into a plastic RPG hero in the endgame and I loved all of his
chain-smoking shenanigans. It really isn’t common (or at least wasn’t in 1997)
for a hero, even a minor hero in this case, to be so much of a chump in a video
game outside of the down-on-his-luck private investigator types in many 90s PC
games. Play the game for Cloud, finish the game for Cid.

Everything else was textbook. Sephiroth, unfortunately,
never went further than his initial descent into crazyhood into being much of a
fun character, especially since he only physically shows up to fight you for
real at the end of the game. While I think his back story and motivation were
very interesting, I find that it would have been far more interesting to find
that he was just another figment of Clouds shattered personality than an actual
corporal threat. That’s just me, though.

Difficulties In and
Around the Blank Slate....

Ok, this is going to sound hypocritical after I gushed over how much I love FXII, but I hate blank slate characters. In that, I mean that every character in this game is totally interchangeable outside of their desperation attacks (Limit Breaks, as
the lingo goes). Since the materia system of the game was designed so you could
freely swap them between characters, it made no sense at the 2/3^rd point to use characters that you didn’t think looked cool, and that was it. Blank slate characters kind of rob me of some of the escapism of these games. With
character classes in games like FFIV or X, specific uses of each character
dictate what strategies you use and lend to a deeper experience. In the case of
VII, it never matters who you’re controlling as long as they have the right materia equipped.

Case in point, here’s how I cracked the game wide open: I had been using Yuffie and Barret through the majority of my daily dealings only because I hadn’t yet stumbled on a Long Range materia (so I could basically turn all of my other characters into long-range fighters). I found myself near the end of the second disk in one of few optional areas that I thought would be worth it (as I found that most of them weren’t after this experience) where I ended up with Yuffie’s best weapon, Cid’s best Limit Break, and a Double Cut materia (I think that’s what it was called). Anyway, knowing that the end of the game was near, I thought it might be an alright idea to kill three birds at once: I’d level my characters, enhance the Double Cut so I could hit 4 times per attack, and train Cid so he could use that Limit Break because I hadn’t touched him for the entire game. A few hours later I was a god. To prove that newfound might, I bitch slapped one of the optional bosses- which, in turn, gave me Cloud’s best weapon. I had decided that no more unnecessary time wasting needed to happen, and I stepped on the end boss. Case closed. It didn’t matter what character I was using, I just happened to find better weapons for a few of them and that’s how I finished the game. Had I ended up in the same situation with anyone else, the outcome would have been identical.

If reading the above paragraph leads you to believe that the game was a joke, give yourself a cookie. The reality is that I didn’t spend too much time outside of blindly attacking my enemies with very little spell casting or monster summoning (if ever). When I figured out a way to set up my empty shells of characters how I wanted them, it was only a matter of time before I crushed some fools while not expending even one elixir from my inventory without straying too far from one button push. This, as it stands, was something of the end of an era for a lot of RPG design. In this game, and the six that preceded it from what I can recollect, a might-makes-right mentality can carry you through all the way to the end. Simply, take the time to level your characters and you’ll be fine. Other games, especially the way they are designed now, can force you to completely manipulate the game a different way to tackle end bosses, forcing you to basically deprogram yourself
from how you went through everything up to that point. Famously, while playing Final Fantasy VIII, I capped my main character’s level (99) after 80ish hours of my life only to find that I had been playing the game incorrectly until the end and was punished for it by the last boss. That is bad design. While I can appreciate how games like (in this case) FFVIII offer a more tactical approach to meatheaded level grinding; and yes, I’m sure there are more fun ways to fight endgame encounters than to just be stronger than they are; I didn’t find it necessary to either seek out a guide for killing the last boss or completely revaluate how I was playing altogether. I actually found it pretty refreshing.

Boogada....

So all in all, it turned out to be a pretty fun distraction from the games I typically buy now. It was comparatively short clocking in at around 35 hours, a nice round number that made sure that Cloud and co. didn’t overstay their welcome. As a cultural curio, and I say this especially after having restarted FFVIII, it’s more
than evident that VII is the beginning of a massive paradigm shift in RPG design. While I found the core game mechanics to be a toned down version of FFVI,
the use of the Playstation hardware in it’s overall presentation made it a successful test run for the later more complex (and far prettier) games of its ilk to surface. In a lot of ways, FFVII is like rap group N.W.A.: their influence on the genre cannot be understated, but the passage of time and their imitators have almost cheapened what we once thought was brilliance into a turning point in popular music, but not the transcendent, profound work of art we thought it was to begin with. For that, Final Fantasy VII, I can only say this to you: thanks for what you’ve done, but I think I’m done with you. With that, I hereby give you no more shit.

The End

Postscript

It’s become obvious over the past few years that guys like me have been ragging on FFVII more for its success rather than its flaws. While I’d be a liar if I didn’t
partially adhere to that mindset prior to the last few weeks, that doesn’t mean
that it’s fair to assess a game on how great it sold as opposed to how good it
may or may not be. I will still disapprove of its place in aftermarket collectability in this respect, though. People, please remember that before you find yourself considering buying this astronomically priced game, know that:

A- it is NOT rare. One could find abundant copies of it anywhere for less than $15 five years ago.

B- a remake is inevitable. Note that I don’t wait with baited breath for this to happen; I just see it as unavoidable as entropy. If Final Fantasy XIII (and it’s spin offs) turn out to suck, Square Enix knows that it need only to spend whatever money they have left on a remake of VII to get back in the black.

C- if a remake happens, or even if it doesn’t, it’s not outside of the realm of possibility that Square Enix rerelease it for the PSP or DS, or put it up on the PSN to download (for a steep price, I’m sure). As Square is prone to remaking, sequelling, and generally siphoning it’s past successes to death, I’m a little surprised it hasn’t happened already…

For some further research, it's best not to lurk through the murk (another unfortunate rhyme) of Gamefaqs.com's FFVII message boards (helpful as they may be for actual game play answers), this is a very interesting debate over the merits of the game from some of the writers at 1UP.com. Be warned that it degenerates into some pretty nerdy nitpicking, but the argument is somewhat lively (if a bit one-sided).Also linked below is GameTrailers.com's FFVII entry for their impeccable Final Fantasy Retrospective. A bit lengthy but fun to watch...

Have a good week

Oh, Times; You Is A-Changin'4

3/31/09

Pump the Brakes

So I'm almost at the end of disk 2 and things are moving pretty fast at this point. Faster, even, than I would have suspected, now that I think about it. For the most part, disk 2 affirms my initial reactions that there is something wrong with this game's overall pace. Midgard was a really a thrilling location with lots of fun environments and well designed scenarios. A plodded along a bit here and there, but the scenery was not only pretty, but the location felt alive. Midgard made me feel as though I was actually in the city; I was interacting with the environments and they all made sense. I hate to keep harping on it, but the overworld just doesn't give me that same satisfaction. The events that take place on the overworld are too fast and too cobbled together and the game doesn't feel cohesive any longer.



The plot from this point (and I'm guessing from here on out) has returned to the nonsense that befuddle most Japanese RPGs. I'm really a little bit let down by this because the game started so strong that, in the first few hours, I had almost completely threw up my hands in my own disgust in how unfair I was to it for so long. While I can't say that I was totally right either (I'll have to decide after the credits roll), I will say that that it's been really ...average. Yeah, average.

Hurmmm...

More hits against it so far have to do with managing my materia between characters. Since you only have three active party members in your menu at a time, trying to shuffle your cats and kittens in and out of the menu to equip/ dequip their stuff is fucking irritating. Read that again; it's not just irritating, it's fucking irritating. When the time comes for Square to finally bleed the VII franchise past its death rattle, I hope this is one of things fixed in the inevitable remake. Battle animations are also really getting on my nerves at this point. While it's easy to level my sights at the summon spells, I actually find that I use them pretty infrequently, so I can't blame them. No, I think if anything is really annoying with the combat it's the enemies and how long it takes for them to swing a sword or shoot rings at you or jump around and spasm for no good reason at all. It really drags battles out much longer than they need to go.



More to come

Oh, Times; You Is A-Changin' 3

3/23/09

So near the end of disk 1 I find I'm getting a little
bored. The really interesting story beats seemed to have come and gone to set
the stage for the conflict. While it's still interesting, I see the plot
starting to descend into RPG normalcy. Granted, even lame Final Fantasy
games still have good stories compared to their peers, but I'm starting to get
the impression that VII is just a graphically enhanced VI. That
may sound harsh, but the reality of if is that VI was still a really
good game and that the evolution of the genre wasn't really that profound at
this point; merely cosmetic changes as opposed to a massive game system
overhaul. Still, I'm having a good time playing it and I'm still glad I got a
chance to go back to it. For now.



Since I really want to get through it as fast as possible, I'm using various
walkthroughs on the internet. This is kind of a blessing and a curse since I
know there are some things that I would have missed completely without it, but
there isn't much of a sense of discovery. Then again, when I originally played
the game in 1997, I used the Bradygames guide to mosey on by my foes (which may
have been the last time I used one, now that I think about it), so it would be hypocritical
to complain now. In seeing the story unfold quicker than I remember, it seems
to me that my characters left Midgard way too early. Structurally, I think it
would have served the game better to keep me in the city for the first disk and
then open up the world with the second, effectively cutting the game in half.
The affecting, oppressive atmosphere that was a real draw for the beginning of
the game seems totally yanked out from under me when we left the city, and it
makes the rest of the game feel like the above mentioned RPG mediocrity when
you travel an over world and hop from town to town, dungeon to dungeon.



One last thing: I've had almost no trouble so far. Yes, some of the enemies can
gang up on you and one or two of the bosses have some dumb way of fighting it
(if it turns orange use melee attacks, magic if it turns purple), but most
things are a complete push over. Even though I'm doing a little bit of level
grinding here and there (which is a total fucking drag in this game), I didn't
expect to basically crush all incoming trouble. Of course, now that I say this
I'm going to start getting stomped on. My other big fear is that it will end up
like just about all of Tri-Ace's games where the enemies and bosses are a joke
during the game and the last boss is so totally different you have to basically
break the way you've been playing the whole game and get this one certain
item/skill/more levels to beat it. If that happens, you bet your ass that this
game will go unfinished. I just don't have the patience for another Lezard.



More to come

Oh, Times; You Is A-Changin' 2

3/20/09

The First from the Front

..............

..

Nothing really specific to report on today, so let’s talk
generals. Even though I’ve only played through the game once and it was more
than 10 years ago, a lot of it came flooding back to me; mostly music and
specific FMV sequences. Some of it’s good, some bad, but let’s start with the
good.

.. ..

So less than 10 hours in, I’m pleasantly surprised with the
writing thus far. Cloud and co. each have a clear voice in their dialogue, and
it most of it reads like natural conversation should. The transition from tough-talking,
no-nonsense Cloud to nice-guy, protect-my-pals Cloud seemed a bit too fast for
me, particularly in contrast to FFVIII’s
main jerk Squall (who’s particular brand of assholery lasted a gloriously large
chunk of the game), but it doesn’t mar his character in any way so far, and the
transition doesn’t seem out of place. Sephiroth is still a compelling villain,
as shown by the scene where he burns Nibbelheim. Watching him tear off the robotic
face to find the encapsulated remains of Jenova is as frightening as it is
fascinating. This scene and the burning of Nibbelheim cements his descent into
madness, not so unlike MacBeth killing his king, but, like other great video
game villains like Luc from Suikoden III,
his motivations are far more sympathetic than the black and white personality
of his genre peers. Sepheroth still stands as a prime example of the depth of
an interesting, layered RPG enemy should be. I expect great things from both
him and the plot of the game throughout after such a good start.

.. ..

The other side to all of this is a heap of problems that I
even recalled from the first time I played it. The most glaring of which is the
lack of clear entrances and exits from most areas. Since the addition of the
minimap in later FF games (like X), wandering through an area for 10+
minutes trying to find which is the way out gets old pretty fast. I’ll put most
of the blame here on the Square’s design team. I’m sure they tried to throw as
much little detail into their environments as the Playstation’s memory would
let them, but at the cost of having dumb level design. Areas that look like
exits probably aren’t, and took me far too long slogging through Midgard to
find where I should really be going. On that note, the context specific
movements and interactions (such as falling on to the swinging wire while
climbing out of Midgard) is downright painful. Never are you given a lot of
direction as to the best approach to clearing these obstacles, so you’re stuck
in an annoying trial and error session that can last far longer than the pace
of the game should allow. It’s nice, really, that they would try some thing a
little different than a point A- point B scenario, but not when it just starts
to pad the length of the game as opposed to fun distraction.

.. ..

At the risk of sounding kind of redundant to the rest of
internet community, the graphics for this game have aged very poorly. In fact,
many sections of this game –particularly the character models- look like trash compared
to even Final Fantasy VIII. Now, I
know that the game is long in the tooth and it was the first of its kind in
many ways, but Playstation games simply do not age well. The sound is fun and
interesting, particularly the music, but the bleeps and blops of the combat
scenes and spell effects are pretty lame by today’s standards. Granted, it’s
still pretty early in the game and I haven’t gotten into too many of the summon
spells yet (which I’m not really looking forward to. Those animations are long), but I’m unimpressed so far on the
audiovisual front. I’m going to try my best to be as even handed about this as
I can be from now on, but a spade’s a spade; these graphics suck.

Oh, Times; You Is A-Changin'

This being my first post in a blog that was started something like 8 months ago, I have to say I'm sorry to some of the other folks that I let down by not posting anything. We thought it would be hip and wacky to start posting about random stuff like video games and comics and lumberjacks and shit, but that seemed to fall by the wayside. So we tried to start again with talking about beer and what our favorite beers are, but that didn't happen either (probably because we couldn't get past the beer drinking part. Man, I can't write when I'm drunk and I don't know how Bukowski did it).

So I'm going to do my part and start over by talking about video games. Maybe lumberjacks, too. I bet we get into some beer, but it's only 3:30 in the afternoon.

Now that I think about it, though, that shit hasn't stopped me before. Hurm...

Moving on, though, I keep a separate blog about the used video game market that updates a couple times a week or so, depending on what's going on. I started that one by pretty much talking trash about Final Fantasy VII, so I think that would be a good place to start this one, too. See, I hadn't played the game in over a decade and was a pretty vocal hater in its place in the gray market. I'm kinda getting over that, but the wound is too deep.

Why the change of heart? Well, it turns out that I sort of stumbled upon a copy and had the nerve to play through it again to see if my ire was worth it. I decided to lay things out on the internets during my second coming, so this is kind of a repost of that until I get more wacky thoughts going. So, the following couple of posts are my afterthoughts of Final Fantasy VII, the second time around.

I'd like to leave you with the fact that Blogger wants me to label this post scooters, vacation, and fall. I'd like to think there's probably a metaphoric link to Final Fantasy VII in that way, but I'm drawing a blank. I'll leave it up to you to find something good...

3/19/09

Noam Chomsky

This is the second time I've posted this today, which means that I had to remember what I wrote the first time. Thanks, MySpace!

So I had this roommate in college, right. This roommate was a pretty well-read hipster kind of character that had seething, frothing hate on for linguist/philosopher/head case Noam Chomsky. I don't think anything gave The Roommate more pleasure than getting into heated, nigh violent altercations with the Chomsky love children and their colorless green ideas. The thing with The Roommate, though, is that it wasn't simply his ability to argue his points, but his want to hate. I say this because in his effort to hold up on the battlefield, The Roommate would read everything Chomsky had ever written (which is a lot) as to bring the right artillery. I always admired him for that.



I have, for years, been a pretty vocal opponent (read: hater) of Final Fantasy VII. I mean, I can't take away the fact that was massive leap forward in JRPG design and video games as a whole, as well as a watershed moment in forging Sony's console supremacy; but when someone gushes over how perfect it is and how maybe, just maybe, it's the greatest video game ever made I grind my teeth. For some reason, it also makes me want to take a shit, but I'm not entirely sure why. My own personal history the game really isn't all that remarkable: it may have been the first game I had ever pre-ordered and I grabbed it on day one. After playing through the first few disks, I got insane bored with it, played through Symphony of the Night (a few times, I think), and began getting sick of it staring me in the face while sitting on my shelf, so I promptly finished it as fast as possible and sold it off. This, of course, was 1997-98, more than a decade ago, and a lot may have changed since then. I've often thought about grabbing another copy to go through with an older, more critical eye to see if my wrath is warrented, but haven't pulled the trigger. Being one of the few games I can think of that's highly sought after based on popular opinion and not necessarily rarity, I just can't justify the $70+ used price tag.

Now, fate has basically dropped a copy of the game in my lap. Therefore, I'll be posting my thoughts on my second coming to what anime kids think is the promised land of video games as often as I can. I'm not sure my life will change, but I'm kind of open to that right now; I've been playing a lot of Street Fighter 4.