Author: RKasa

The Game Remains the Same… and That’s Okay

RKasa

August 18, 2009

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Recently-returned oldbie Keefy has started a thread at the Citadel’s Forums titled Your Top Ten Games – Ever. My post is here, mainly pulled from the top of my head. This being a Final Fantasy-related forum, I imagine I’ll get a lot of flak for not including any games from that series in the list.

Afterwards, I got to thinking about why hardcore gamers like the Final Fantasy series so much while dismissing the far more accessible likes of Pokemon. The latter’s “kiddy” trappings aside, the main complaint I hear leveled against Pokemon is that each new installment in the main series is too similar to what has come before. I won’t argue with that; as I said in my Pokemon Ruby impressions post, one Pokemon title should be enough for most people. However, can you imagine the backlash that would occur amongst Pokemon’s dedicated fanbase if the series did take a radical turn?

I would imagine that it would be huge. Mario and Zelda fans, among others, cry out for innovation and often get it, but also complain about new things that they don’t like. Most recently, Dragon Quest IX—the first mainline Dragon Quest to debut on a handheld—has encountered some backlash from dedicated fans. And of course, the Final Fantasy series is not exempt from this, despite its reputation for drastic change from installment to installment; the black sheep of that family include FFVIII with its Junction system, FFXII with its MMO-like trappings, and FFXI and FFXIV, which are MMOs.

Many hardcore gamers seem to crave innovation, but this doesn’t always translate to big hits, or even enjoyable games. Familiarity is a staple that many game series rely on—not just big hits like Pokemon, but also those with smaller yet dedicated fanbases. In any other medium, this same demand for innovation would be silly. Long-running TV shows like Wheel of Fortune may change some over time, and authors like Stephen King hone their craft over several years, but for the most part, people tend to follow specific entertainments (and entertainers) because they continually provide things that they like. I understand that video games, being a technology-dependent medium, are a little different, but there’s nothing wrong with following a series that doesn’t change very much. Innovation is all well and good, but so are high-quality stalwarts, and I hope that they’ll continue to stick around.

The Game After the Game

RKasa

August 9, 2009

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I haven’t started up a new JRPG since beating Digital Devil Saga 2—mainly because of certain real-life obligations that I had been putting off and needed to take care of. That’s not to say I haven’t been gaming. Along with some Planet Puzzle League and DDR, I completed Wario Land, getting all of the treasures (and the best ending) for the first time, and have been slowly progressing through Klonoa 2: Dream Champ Tournament. Also, most recently, I’ve gone back to Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo’s Dungeon.

Gameplay spoilers ahead:

The Digital Devil Saga Duology

RKasa

August 1, 2009

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Once upon a time, there was a dystopia called the Junkyard. The people of this land were divided into six factions, each one designated by a specific color, and their never-ending fight for the right to enter Nirvana was overseen by a seventh entity, the Karma Temple. One day, life in the Junkyard changes when a strange girl emerges from a cocoon, and all of the residents receive the powers of demons. The battle is ratcheted up a notch as the presence of these demons, or Atma, require the residents to start eating each other to remain sane.

Right from the outset, Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga is not your typical JRPG, and the plot only gets more complicated from there. By the time the game ends, you are left with a cliffhanger and many unanswered questions, all of which are addressed (in a sometimes sloppy manner) in Digital Devil Saga 2. Throughout their journey, Serph and the other characters grow and change, find old emotions and uncover pasts and events which they had forgotten or never even known. They’re the types of characters one can get attached to, and even the most unlikable of all, the volatile Heat, ends up being more than he seems.

While the story may be a refreshing departure from the anime fantasies of most JRPGs, the battle and character growth systems are quite familiar. Here, the biggest outside influence on the Digital Devil Saga duology seems to be Final Fantasy X. Not only is one able to swap characters in and out during the midst of battle, but the ability systems in both games take forms that resemble the Sphere Grid. By spending in-game currency at save points, characters can unlock different ability sets, called Mantras, for their Atma to learn. In Digital Devil Saga, Mantras are arranged in a clear, mostly linear map, but in the sequel, this is replaced by a hexagonal grid that not only allows more freedom, but is also tougher to navigate. Once a Mantra has been paid for and set, Atma Points, which are used to master said abilities, can be earned by defeating and/or devouring enemies during battle. It’s a straightforward, elegant system that, while not being quite as complex as the Sphere Grid, does its inspiration proud.

Going back to battles: one of the game’s most distinctive features is the “Press Turn” system, which makes what would otherwise be a staid turn-based affair into something more dynamic. At the beginning of each round in battle, every character and enemy present receives a turn. These turns can be added to or subtracted from by pulling off certain moves. For instance, attacking a monster with a spell type it’s weak against, or with a critical hit, will add a turn to your party’s current round. However, if you miss in your attack, or cast a spell that an enemy can block or absorb, a turn or two can be lost. Skipping a character will cost half a turn, combo attacks cost two or three, and there are other, specific ways to manipulate the number of turns per round, especially in the second game. It’s the type of system that requires careful strategizing and can also get your party into trouble very quickly, especially in the later dungeons. There have been times when I enter a random battle and the enemy goes first—only to be completely wiped out by them without doing anything, because they attacked with spells my party were weak against, or happened to pull off a completely successful instant-death move on everyone. Fortunately, these occurrences were infrequent enough to be merely annoying rather than frustrating, but at the same time, they’re a notable flaw in this otherwise ingenious system.

The game’s general aesthetic is another notable feature. The character designs have a unique style to them, and the world eschews the Judeo-Christian and Buddhist themes of many other JRPGs for Hinduism—from the concept of Nirvana, to enemies visually based on the likes of Vishnu and Ganesha, to the simple mandala designs found throughout both games. Voice acting ranges from tolerable to excellent, leaning more towards the latter overall; unfortunately, the sound mix for the battles nearly drown out any present voice snippets entirely. The guitar-driven soundtracks are decent, and DDS2’s is especially good, with heavy electronica leanings and an engaging, beat-infused main battle theme that trumps the first game’s more sluggish one.

When I first began fleshing out my PS2 RPG collection, it took me quite awhile to find these two games at a decent price (I eventually snagged them off of eBay in a single lot for $100). Despite the occasional annoyances with instant-death battles and having to grind late in both games in order to take down some particularly tricky bosses, I greatly enjoyed them. They were each a good length—roughly 35-40 hours apiece—and although some bits of the story ended up being vague and nonsensical in DDS2, I liked the world and the characters. There’s more about the DDS duology to enjoy than I’ve discussed here, but in general, if you’d like to play a dark, mature RPG with large, complex dungeons and challenging battles, these two games are worth looking into.

Game Progress: In the Grip of Nostalgia

RKasa

July 27, 2009

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I haven’t been doing much gaming lately, as I’ve been feeling under the weather. Because of that, I’ve put off beating Digital Devil Saga 2 (though I started playing again this weekend and hope to wrap it all up shortly); I like being fully awake and non-headachey for RPGs, especially those I’ve never beaten before. I did start Klonoa 2: Dream Champ Tournament, but am currently stuck on a part that, again, I want to be in a clearheaded state to play, otherwise I just know that I’ll never get through it. Oh, and I gave up on Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg, convinced that Sonic Team hates me.

Not wanting to put any more time into DDS2 yesterday, and not wanting to touch Klonoa, last night I dug out the GBA I bought awhile back and the cart of Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 that had arrived not too long ago. Back in the day, when my sister and I were kids, the only way we could play many games was through our friends and cousins. However, my sister did get a Game Boy as a gift at some point, and her small library of games included Kirby’s Dream Land, The Lion King (which stank), and Wario Land. Kirby is good, but I’ve no desire to play it again, as the games which followed in the series give me my nostalgia fix well enough, even though I’ve no particular attachment to said games.

On the other hand, I have never derived such satisfaction from later Wario platformers, so instead of giving more of those a chance, I went right back to the source, which I hadn’t played in at least fourteen years. Playing through a handful of levels last night, what I was most amazed by was how much I’d remembered. This wasn’t a case where I could get through every single level easily, knowing where every single enemy and hazard was. Rather, familiarity was at work. It’s like going back to a place which hasn’t changed much over the years and being able to pick out even the most insignificant landmarks. Only thing is, here, the landmarks are things like Wario’s pith helmet, the Sugar Pirates, the item blocks with the eyes on them, the skull doors, the 10 coins, the bottles which give Wario special abilities, and the ways in which they and many other elements all come together.

So yeah, it’s a real nostalgia trip, unlike any other I’ve ever had, probably due to the length of time since I last beat it and now. The one thing that’s bugging me at the moment is a small crumb caught between the GBA’s screen and the glass layer on top of it, which I won’t be able to get rid of without a special type of screwdriver (I’m looking into borrowing one). Funny thing is, even though I can be picky about things like that, so far it hasn’t lessened my enjoyment of Wario Land.

Game Progress: Oh, Sonic Team

RKasa

July 12, 2009

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Last week was a quiet one, gaming-wise. I beat Digital Devil Saga, as I’d intended, and though the final boss was a bitch to beat, the ending has me very much looking forward to its sequel. I intend to start that sometime this week. The only other game I played to any extent was Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg. It was the only non-RPG left in my console/handheld backlog and I needed to break things up a bit, so I popped it in the Wii yesterday.

Billy Hatcher Right now, there isn’t much to say except that it’s most certainly a Sonic Team game, and not in a good way. While the Sonic Team-developed 3D Sonic games since the Dreamcast era have been rightfully derided for their sometimes imprecise controls and cameras from hell, the non-Sonics that the team has made have generally ranged from pretty good to really good, and have included the likes of Chu Chu Rocket, Samba de Amigo, and Phantasy Star Online. Thus, I went in giving Giant Egg the benefit of the doubt. That, and the game has a kickass soundtrack, which I’d purchased and started listening to a long time ago after hearing some tracks on the now-defunct Gaming FM.

Giant Egg turns out to have many of the same problems that have plagued the Sonics, and some unique to the game. The camera can be player controlled, and is fine most of the time, but is frequently too close to the action during fights against larger enemies. The platforming is a little flaky when trying to be precise, and double jumping while holding eggs is especially annoying when the platform is a narrow one on top of a crate.

Speaking of the egg holding: the main mechanic of the game involves rolling, growing, and generally manipulating eggs. To start rolling an egg, one need only approach it. However, this simple approach backfires whenever Billy loses control of an egg by falling off a short ledge or doing a quick turn. There’s also been a few times when I bound up to a high place using a device that requires a held egg and said egg reaches the top safely without Billy, which means I have to run around to find another egg and try it again. This annoyance over the egg control isn’t restricted to wanting to roll, as not wanting to can be just frustrating. For instance, one level required me to stand on top of an egg by jumping on it, which ended up being harder than it sounds. The game also grades you, using the total time elapsed per level as one of the metrics. With the fidgety controls and sometimes hard-to-reach collectables, my average score so far has been a low one.

What’s most annoying is the part I’m stuck on now, in one of the mandatory levels. It’s a pirate-themed one, and my task here is to aim a cannon and shoot myself out of it to reach the next round of platforming. One of the locals even gives me a tip when I talk to them (which reminds me; it seems that Billy can’t talk to characters without letting go of the egg), telling me to aim just slightly above a certain flag. I try doing this many times, and always end up drowning in the water over and beyond my target. Talk about your cheap deaths. I eventually gave up for the evening and started plowing through one of the postgame challenges in Chocobo’s Dungeon instead.

So in general, it’s okay (and the soundtrack is still great), but I’m not too crazy about the aspects which have carried over from Sonic Team’s more annoying works. That’s pretty much all for now; this week, I’ll start Digital Devil Saga 2, and maybe Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles with my husband. I’m also looking into getting more cheap non-RPGs for my console backlog; Klonoa: Dream Champ Tournament and the original Ratchet & Clank are two that I’m looking at. Anyone have other recommendations? WiiWare/Virtual Console recs are fair game as well, since I got a 2000 Nintendo Points card for my birthday and have 200 spare points sitting on the Wii itself. I’m setting aside most of the points for World of Goo, but have no idea what to do with the rest right now.

Dungeon Hero C

RKasa

July 5, 2009

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Yesterday I beat Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo’s Dungeon, despite being tired and feeling generally sluggish. Managed to get through the last wing of the dungeon and the final stage all right, partially because I had finished a particularly tough optional dungeon and gotten a really sweet reward from it that served me well for the endgame. There is a decent amount of postgame content, but some of it requires a ton of grinding (and therefore, way, way more dungeon crawling) and even though I enjoyed the game a great deal, I need a break from it for awhile.

Yeah, Chocobo’s Dungeon is very good indeed. Though I’ve played dungeon crawlers before (most notably the excellent Dark Cloud 2), I’d never touched an actual roguelike/mystery dungeon game before this one. Although Chocobo’s Dungeon eases some of the pain of dying in ways which are more forgiving than your average “true” roguelike—dying in a dungeon still means you’re stripped of your loose items and cash, but here, you at least get to hold onto your equipped gear and accumulated experience—it is still not without challenge, and has given me a taste for the genre. In this sense, much like how the Mario RPGs lend a lighthearted, but not stupidly easy, approach to traditional JRPGs, Chocobo’s Dungeon seems to do the same for roguelikes.

The story is one which I covered somewhat in my previous post, but I’ll rehash it here again, while giving some additional details. Chocobo is the partner of Cid, a treasure hunter. While after a treasure called Timeless Power, they get whisked away to the realm of Memoria, and the town of Lostime, where the Bell of Oblivion regularly makes the townsfolk forget the past with each ring. Not long after Cid and Chocobo’s arrival, an egg drops down from the sky, and a green-haired baby hatches from it. Strange events follow, and Chocobo gains the ability to enter randomly-generated “mysterious dungeons” generated from the Lostime inhabitants’ memories. Some dungeons are required to progress through the story, but many more are optional, have strict rulesets, and forbid the use of outside items, even equipped ones. These “special rule” dungeons are often insanely tough and always require careful planning, but the rewards gained are typically very useful and range from the opening of new type of stores to the acquisition of new jobs. More about the latter as we go on…

Navigating and fighting in these dungeons is a breezily-paced, yet entirely turn-based, affair; every move forward on the map, every use of an item, every attack—all of it takes up turns. As such, moves have to be planned carefully if one doesn’t want to be creamed by the monsters who inhabit these dungeons. In addition, there are both harmful and beneficial traps and treasures scattered throughout the floors, many of which are hidden or unidentifiable without using certain moves or items. Being randomly-generated, the dungeons largely consist of simple tilesets, but at the same time, this being a spinoff of the Final Fantasy franchise, they’re made to look as detailed and appealing as possible.

Wrapped up in all this is a new take on the Job System, the classic Final Fantasy trope that has appeared in many of the series’ games. For those not familiar with jobs, they are essentially entire ability sets, separated out according to the job title; thus, you have black mages which specialize in harmful magic, and knights which can pull off various physical attack moves. Chocobo’s Dungeon doesn’t have the wealth of jobs that are in, say, Final Fantasy Tactics, but there are still a good variety of them, and they are all different enough from each other to recommend certain ones for certain dungeons.

So, the dungeon crawling and battle system is meaty and addictive. How about the rest? Getting around in the world is fairly easy overall, though the entire game is plagued by those much-loathed loading screens. There’s a decent crafting system to improve upon weapons bought and/or found in dungeons, as well as fishing and gardening sidequests which don’t have to be messed around with much and have some good payoffs. Overall, the graphics are all right, with some particularly nice aesthetic touches lent to the monsters, which are mostly unique takes on classic Final Fantasy baddies such as Bombs, Lamias, and Tonberries. Animation, particularly in cutscenes, is passable; oddly enough, the mouth positions in particular seem to be part of the overall movement cycles, and I highly doubt matching lip movements was a concern, even in Japanese. For most of the game, I used the Classic Controller; the quick item menu option in the dungeons would only work half the time, if that, but otherwise the controls were all right. However, for the minigames in the Mog House, the Wii Remote was required. I didn’t play these much, and the best one was Pop-Up Duel, which looks to have been directly ported from the earlier DS title Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales, where it wasn’t so much a diversion than a big part of the overall game. Speaking of Chocobo Tales, the script in Chocobo’s Dungeon is much better than the former game’s, with none of the forced humor, and a greater focus on drama. Finally, the soundtrack is nothing short of wonderful, consisting largely of inoffensive arrange tracks of classic Final Fantasy tunes, ranging from the familiar (the classic “Prelude”) to the unexpected (FFXI’s “Tarutaru Male”, among others).

In general, Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo’s Dungeon is a solid second-tier Final Fantasy spinoff, and a game well worth checking out for RPG-starved Wii owners, and those wanting a good dungeon crawler in particular.