Review #113: Final Fantasy VIII

 Grinding and Farming Fantasy VIII.

 If you didn't like Final Fantasy VII, chances are you never played it at launch or you simply don't like JRPGs, but if both are true and you still didn't like it.... tough luck, you missed out on one of the best RPGs of all time. When Final Fantasy 8 was first released, it received tons of  glowing critiques, some even calling it the best in the series. How did it age? It aged fairly well, problem being, the core mechanics were terrible even when at the time of its release!

  You take the role of Squall, a secluded young man who happens to be a trainee at Balamb Garden. This place trains young men and women into SeeDs, mercenaries of sorts, if they pay is good, they'll kill whatever they have to kill. The game's theme is that of "Love", as the game's logo suggests, it's all about the adorkable Rinoa trying to pry open Squall's secluded self. Also, there's a sort of second protagonist in the form of Laguna, an Esthar Soldier with a very carefree attitude. Every now and again, the game will switch to Laguna's exploits alongside his friends, and in the end, both narratives tie up together. Whether you can accept that Rinoa would keep trying to woo a jerk who evidently wants nothing to do with her(at the beginning, anyways) isn't really the biggest problem with the story, but rather, how dumb it can get. When the script is at its finest, it's fantastic, the story and seeing characters interact with each other was what kept me going, but when the script gets dumb... it gets really, really dumb. I found myself wanting to punch the screen at least twice due to how stupidly some characters were behaving.

 In this installment, Squaresoft decided to completely change how the combat system works. They had always tried to change it up between installments, but this was the first time that they wound up with a total blunder. Final Fantasy 7's most impressive spells were the Summoning Magic, in which you'd summon a giant beast or monster of sorts to wreck havoc upon your enemy, so this time they made Summoning, now named Guardian Forces or GF for short, the foundation of the system. You must "junction" your character to a GF, characters that don't have GFs junctioned to them can only Attack, but with a junction GF you gain access to "Magic", "GF", "Draw" and "Item", plus, certain GFs grant you bonus abilities, to a maximum of four, attack being unswappable. GFs also level up alongside you, and earning AP through battles allow them to learn passive or active skills that you can then equip to your character. So far, so good.

 Now then, first of all, Equipment has been done away with. You don't equip armor or accessories, rather, you junction magic into your stats to enhance them. Actually, you can upgrade weapons, but you need to gather Random Drops from enemies, Steal them from the enemies or play the Card Game(More on this in a bit). This means that the Mug command, that Diablos has, quickly becomes essential to upgrading your weapons, as random drops are a pain to get, and sometimes, when the game is feeling naughty, it makes the items that you can steal, different from the ones they drop, know what that means? Farming enemies until they drop it, and the drop percentage is very low. Although I got through the entire first disc not being able to upgrade anyone's weapon and I did just fine(Turns out the Wendingo held the steel pipes!).

 Doesn't sound like much fun, huh? It gets worse. I mentioned how you had to junction magic to your stats, right? Well, that is what the "Draw" command is there for. You draw magic out of your enemies. This is an incredibly slow process, you draw from 1 to 9 charges of magic per Draw. And you must do this every time you come across an enemy that has new Magic. And the best part about it? You won't even use this magic because the amount of magic that you junction to your stats is related to how much it buffs up your stats! Oh, and each of the 6 characters has their own individual magic pool. The only times I actually used magic, was the magic that the boss was carrying, instead of "stocking" it I'd use it against it, which is kinda amusing. True, there are other ways to earn magic, you can come across a few "Draw Zones", that let you draw once every couple of hours, or you can... play the Card Game to earn cards and then use the Card Mod ability on them  to earn a certain amount of a certain spell, or you can, hopefully, use another ability to turn your items into Magic. Whatever way you choose, it's gonna be a drag. As bothersome as it is, the game loves to split up your party at times, and when that happens there's an option to swiftly exchange all that is junctioned from one character to another, including Magic and the ability setup, which was fairly convenient.

 Then there are Limit Breaks. The good? Now they are more interactive than before, for example, Squall get's a sort of rhythm mini-game, while with Zell you get a list of commands, and you have to pick which ones to execute in a 5 second gap. This was a great change. The bad? Unless you engage in sidequests, you probably won't get to see them. Limit Breaks now trigger when you are low on health and at random. You can press circle, which normally switches you between the characters that you can use a turn with, until it shows up though. The thing is... I never got to be low on health, and I didn't even use healing items or spells. All throughout the game all I did, whenever I wasn't drawing magic, was have Squall junctioned with the strongest magics available on strength and the passive Strength boosts and have him use his normal attack, Squall has a unique trait to him, press R1 right when he attacks an enemy and you basically get a free critical hit, and then have my other two characters using Guardian Forces. Guardian Forces take a little time to cast, but they act as shields, so the GFs lose HP when attack while summoning them(They can "die", but there are special items to heal and revive them). This "strategy" got me throughout the first 3 discs with almost no problems at all. If you mean to get the Ultimate Weapons, which probably means you are gonna make trips to the hard encounters at the Island Closest to Hell and the Underground Sea Facility, you may need to change up your plans though!

 The game offers plenty of side quests, although you might need to consult FAQs to even know that they exist. There are about 6 secret GFs, a secret boss(Ultimate Weapon), a secret dungeon and even an optional town for you explore. There's two islands, The Island closest to Hell and the Island closes to Heaven that house some of the strongest random encounters in the game, and you never get to go to them on the main quest, only by exploring on your own. And then there's the Card Game, Triple Triad. Triple Triad can be fun if you get into it, and it's fairly in depth. Each Town has its own rules, and when the Card Queen visits, the rules can change. It's also a decent alternative to farming, some people can even get Squall's best weapon on the first disc just by playing the card game. And since the game does the stupid "Enemies level up alongside you" mechanic, this is a great way to keep your levels low. But then again, this also means that instead of playing the game, you'll be spending hours playing a card game, so pick your poison. They also changed the way you earn money. Killing monsters was too mainstream, now you must raise your SeeD rank by taking written tests(I'm not joking!) or according to how you play the game, sometimes the game will decide to lower it for no reason. Well, according to your SeeD rank is how much money you will earn whenever the game decides to give you money. Who came up with this?!

 Back when the game's first screenshots were shown, it was easy to see that graphics were a huge selling point, and... they have aged fine, considering it's a PS1 game. Easily one of the best looking PS1 games, the pre-rendered backgrounds look extremely well even today(And it's easy to notice, coming from Shadow Madness!), and character models feature a lot of detail. Monsters look particularly fierce and menacing, and there's some fairly funny animations(The Wending dribbling you like a basket ball!). Music is also great, albeit I doubt it has the lasting power that FF7's soundtrack had.

 The good news? It's not a terrible game, and when the game is at its greatest, when you don't need to draw magic, when you are actually playing and having fun, when the script is not being dumb? It's really, really fun. But at its worst it becomes a chore to play it, and that's why it will never be as good as 4, 6 or 7.
 7.0 out of 10.

Now Playing: Hexyz Force

 Uh oh

 I wanted to wait a little longer before translating my first impressions into text, but if I waited any longer, it wouldn't be my "first impressions" anymore! Well, I picked Leon over Cecilia for my first playthrough, and while the storyline seems mildly interesting, it also has a... cliche air about it.

 But what matters most, at the moment, the combat system... I don't know if I'm cool with it. Seems there are two types of weapons, some consume RF(Mana?) and others... break. I don't know if I'm gonna like having my weapons break all the time and having to carry multiple, unfixeable, weapons. I'm the kind of guy that easily gets attached to stuff, so I don't want to find a really cool weapon only to have it break on me! I'm not saying that it's a bad design choice, I'm just saying that it's not my kind of game.

Review #112: Dragon Ball Z Shin Budokai - Another Road

 Dragon Dragon, Rock the Drag-on Dragooon Baaaaall Zeeeee

 Another year, another(old) Dragon Ball Z that I get to play. Shin Budokai is the natural evolution of the Budokai games, which would latter transform into Burst Limit(Which sadly didn't get a sequel).

 The biggest change were the basic mechanics of the game. Instead of Punch and Kick, you now get Rush(weak) and Smash(Strong) attacks, the Smash Attack being comboable from Rush attacks, and can be charged. Special moves got reduced to 3 per character, Back+Ki and Forward+Ki are the special attacks, while Up+Ki produces the Ultimate attack, which consume 5 stocks of the Ki bar. Pressing Down+Ki is the Transformation, if your character has one. This also means that the whole Capsule System was scrapped, thankfully, since you now get a full moveset from the outset. Regarding transformations, probably due to the PSP's limitations, you can only have one. Which means that when you pick Goku, you either pick SSJ1, SSJ2, SSJ3 or SSJ4, and you go from Base Goku to the form you picked. You still get a Guard button, and tapping it alongside the directional pad towards your opponent, makes you dodge their attacks and appear behind them. Lastly, there are new Burst Aura mechanics tied to the R Button, you can grant yourself invulnerability, chase attacks, sidestep faster, stunning attacks and enter a Super Armor mode. All these new mechanics... you must learn by yourself. The manual doesn't have any information about them, and there is no tutorial, maybe the game expects you to come from Shin Budokai 1? Regardless, you must learn this by yourself.

 There's a nice variety of modes: Another Road(Story Mode), Arcade Mode(Self explanatory), Z Trial(Which houses Survival, Challenge and various routes of Time Attack), Network Battle(Self explanatory) and Training(Self explanatory). Notice anything? There is no "Versus CPU" mode. While you can emulate matches in Training Mode, it's not the same. Why it wasn't included is beyond me. Story Mode sounded really good on paper, you play as Trunks once he returned to his timeline, and must now face the Buu threat, which makes sense. Trunks then goes back in time to bring the Z-Fighters, post Buu saga, to his time in order to defeat Buu now. And then it all goes down the drain. The script is terrible, in the franchise, post Buu Vegeta is a very different man from, say, Cell Saga Vegeta... but now Vegeta is back to his murderous self(Probably because that's how he got most of his fans, and how he is mostly remembered for). They also rehash plot devices, like Vegeta letting himself get possessed by Babidi. Again. Which is really dumb. Gohan, who is now in Ultimate Gohan form and no longer needs to go Super Saiyan... goes Super Saiyan. And they completely botched the power levels, having Bardock(Who has gained popularity, so now they are putting him in every game) fight Pikkon and Ultimate Gohan to a standstill. And Goku meeting his real father for the first time is never touched upon besides "Now that my father is here bla bla". And the story quickly dumbs down to "Babidi created clones of everyone, you must now fight everyone's clones".

 The story is terrible, yes, but what about the mode itself? Most "stages" on each chapter place you on a field, in which enemy units target you or cities. You fly around and when you make contact with an enemy unit, you engage on a 1 on 1 battle. You can also heal yourself, and the cities, by standing over them This mode is impossibly repetitive, they usually resort to having you fight the same enemies over and over again. Sometimes the enemies have Senzu beans which double as lives... so you must fight them again. Chapter four is the worst by far, each mission in the chapter has you fighting the same Meta-Cooler enemies, and in one mission, you have to survive 300 seconds of endless Meta-Cooler clones. The fights are not terribly hard, they are just terribly boring! Plus, every time you engage an enemy, they have to trade one liners with your character, then fight, and after there is another winner... another one liner. These dialogue bubbles can be skipped by pressing start, but they still take 2-3 seconds to load before you can skip them, coupled with how many times you have to fight the same enemies over and over again.... it's quite vexing.

 The game offers a respectable roster of about 18 characters. Most characters are very different from one another, except maybe Goku and Adult Gohan. While Transformations tend to have at least one different special move, they do share the basic moveset. The game offers a very simple customization system, each character has a nine slot grid where you can attach cards, that you earn after each fight in story mode or that you can buy with money earned by battling, these cards raise the stats of your character. I'd rather have this than having my movesets crippled due to my lack of capsules, like the Budokai series. Lastly, the Challenge Mode offers 50 different challenges, some as dumb as performing a Ultimate attack, to some harder one like dealing a certain amount of damage in one combo.

 The overall presentation is excellent, character models are bright, colorful and detailed, and they move just as they did in the Budokai series. Movement and action is very smooth, with rare instances of slowdown when using the Aura to parry certain beam attacks. The game offers dual voice acting, English and Japanese, I can't speak for the English dub, but the Japanese dub is spot-on. Music is all taken from the Budokai series, I never cared too much for the Budokai music, but it's alright.

 Without having to endure such a tedious Story Mode to unlock everything, the game might've beeen more enjoyable as a whole, as the fast, smooth revamped gameplay is very entertaining. Not having a conventional VS CPU mode sucks, but there are plenty of Single Player modes to occupy your time.
 7.5 out of 10.

Now Playing: Dragon Ball Z Shin Budokai - Another Road

 Pretty dang good.

 I like Dragon Ball Z, even though I don't love it as many other anime fans, but I like it. I actually started with the original Dragon Ball anime, back when I was a kid, and I remember adoring it(Surprisingly, I now dislike it, the manga is alright though). When it came to the "Z"(Or post-time skip) saga, I actually came across it through videogames and not anime, which probably explains why I'm always so drawn towards the games and not the show.

 Among the games, my top two are definitely Legends(PS1) and Super Dragon Ball Z, with the Budokai series close behind. Shin Budokai is the evolution of the Budokai series, and it feels, much, much better. I'll leave the specifics for the Review, but I love the new engine and mechanics. The game is also incredibly smooth and fast-paced, and it plays like a dream. The game also looks fantastic, and the animation is top-notch.

 Buuuuuuut, Story Mode is a drag. It involves cities that restore your HP, and Senzu Beans that enemies carry as well, which means you have to fight them multiple times, and obscure ways to unlock alternate paths(Usually having to fail the objectives).... I don't like it. Also, you are forced to play as Mirai Trunks. I love Trunks, but I'd much rather play as Adult Gohan. Speaking of characters, I love how Vegeto and Gogeta have their own slots. I always loved Vegeto's design(And back when I knew DBZ through the games, I didn't know that he was a fusion), so having to perform a fusion, in the Budokai series, to play as him was always annoying.

Archile's Grab Bag: Late Tuesday Edition

  NEEEEEEEEEEW PACKAAAAAAAAGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

 Crimson Gem Saga: It looked pretty friggin' decent, and it was going up in price, so might as well get it!

  Pursuit Force: The Sequel was in my hands already, both look very arcade-like, non-stop action, totally up my alley.

  Hexyz Force: Same deal as with Crimson Gem Saga, but doubled. It looked twice as good, and was twice as expensive!

  Power Stone Collection: Everyone seems to have good memories of this game, so I need to play it! Even if multiplayer seems to be the focus.

  Dragon Ball Z Shin Budokai - Another Road: Was it too hard to name it "Shin Budokai 2", like the Japanese version? It seems li... Actually, I already tried it, I'll go more in-depth in a couple of hours.

  Dragon Ball Evolution: I didn't see the movie, and from what I've been told, I never will. The game seems like a poor version of Shin Budokai. But it was 4 bucks new. 4 bucks.

 Legacy of Kain - Blood Omen 2: My disc was a bit scratched, so I needed a replacement disc.

Review #111: Castlevania - The Dracula X Chronicles

 What a horrible night to have a curse.

 There's no way around it, Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles is a fantastic Castlevania package that manages to please both Retrovania and Metroidvania fans. You get an excellent remake of Rondo of Blood, the original Rondo of Blood and, arguably, the best Metroidvania, Symphony of the Night.

 The main entrée is quite clearly the Rondo of Blood remake(As a matter of fact, you unlock the other games in this one), which pits you as either Richter Belmont or Maria Bernard, as they infiltrate Dracula's castle to rescue the captured maidens, by the cultists who brought Dracula back into the realm of the living, and defeat Dracula himself. It's the same basic story that most Retrovanias use, but it does have a more involved narrative, as rescuing the maidens triggers cut-scenes that flesh Richter and Maria personalites, both characters get different cut-scenes, with different dialogues!

 When you first start the game, you can only play as Richter, but if you manage to rescue Maria, you'll be able to switch characters before starting any stage. What's really cool about it, is that Maria and Richter play completely different from each other. Richter is slower, can tank more hits, and while his whip attacks come out slower, he deals more damage. Something new to the Belmonts, that took a little bit getting used(Since all my gaming instincts made me think I'd double jump!) to, is the back flip. By pressing jump twice, Richter performs a backflip, which proves to be really useful. Maria on the other hand, is much smaller, but much faster, even though she can't take as many hits as Richter. While she deals less damage per attack, she attacks much faster, so in the end, she is kinda stronger than Richter, furthermore, instead of a backflip, she gets an incredibly useful double jump, and can slide or roll on the ground. Basically, Maria is the easy mode of the game, but Richter provides the classic Castlevania feel. I found myself playing every new stage as Richter, but when replaying stages to get collectibles or exploring alternate routes, I'd take Maria to make it faster. Lastly, both characters will run across hearts that double as ammo for the multiple sub-weapons you can find. Richter gets the classic Knife, Axe, Holy Water and the Cross, while Maria has four unique sub-weapons, Dragon, Tiger(Cat), Phoenix and Turtle, while the Book is shared by both(even though it behaves differently for each), and by spending extra hearts, you both heroes can perform item crashes, most of the time they are full-screen attacks.

 The game has 9 basic stages, with alternate stages 2', 3', 4' and 5'. Furthermore, most stages happen to have alternate routes(With different bosses! Although stage sets, like 2 and 2', 3 and 3', etc do share bosses), which translates into a ton of replayability. Each stage also houses plenty of unlockables, the two biggies being the Original Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night, but you can also find Music CDs. Music CDs can later be used at the setup screen to customize which song plays in each stage! Rounding it all up, there's 3 unlockable Boss Rush modes and the Dracula Peke minigame. The game has a lot of stuff to do, routes to take and bosses to defeat, and it's pretty challenging to boot. While it's definitely not as hard as the Original Castlevania, but it's way harder than Bloodlines and Castlevania IV. You do get unlimited continues, but lives are not and dying mid-way through a level means going back to a checkpoint(They are usually pretty generous, usually), losing whatever sub-weapon you held and defaulting your heart count to 10. The game, while hard, is also very fair and requires patience. If you take it slow, wait for opportunities and learn patterns, you should have no troubles with the game.

 Everything I've stated previously is true for the original Rondo of Blood as well, however, there are a few key differences. For instance, it feels much faster, and it's slightly harder than the remake. Since you'l probably tackle this one after finishing the remake, everything you've learned will aid you, so it's not as hard as a blind playthrough. Stages are almost entirely identical, with a very sparse changes here and there. Speed is not what makes it harder, but rather, you'll notice that there is a lot more stuff to avoid. Surprisingly, two sections are actually harder in the remake: Dracula, who got a new third form, and Stage 5', which is downright brutal in the Remake, even while using Maria. As for Symphony of the Night... I'll be reviewing it later, the PS1 version, so I won't say much, but the game has aged gloriously, it's arguably, the best Metroidvania out there. It also received a couple of changes, at least when it comes to the American version. While it's disappointing that they didn't port the Saturn version(Richter got a new Spriteset to match Ayami Kojima's art, instead of reusing Rondo of Blood's, and there were about 4 new areas), we do get the little changes that the Japanese reprints added. These include two new Familiars(Which are alternate versions of the Fairy and Demon, they are neither worse nor better, they are just slightly different(Both demons re identical, actually, but they look different)). The game also received a re-dub and the script was revised, no more miserable piles of secrets!

 Visually, the game is quite a looker. The game is very colorful, with fantastic looking stages, and there's a nice variety of them, each one with a different theme, and alternate routes within the stage themselves usually vary wildly on imagery. Enemies look really good, making the jump to 3D quite nicely, even if they posses rather simplistic animations. As for the playable characters, Konami translated Kojima's art quite well into the 3D models, they posses a fair bit of detail, and look really good. Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night look fantastic and vibrant on the PSP, even if you do have to play with frames on the sides(Since the games had different screen ratios back then). The music is downright phenomenal, it IS Castlevania after all, and there's quite a selection of tunes present in the game. Voice acting is... serviceable, it's not terrible, but it's not necessarily good either.

 By itself, Rondo of Blood's remake would've been an easy 9.0, a timeless Castlevania adventure, that plays extremely well, is incredibly fun, has tons to unlock and find, looks amazing and has a fantastic soundtrack. The inclusion of the original Rondo of Blood is genius(How many remakes include the original?), but Symphony of the Night is icing on the cake. Any Castlevania fan should look into it.
 10 out of 10.

Review #110: Flower, Sun and Rain

 Delightfully bizarre.

 I am a lover of all things Suda 51, what can I say, the wonderfully bizarre worlds and characters he creates, alongside the deeper meanings and themes he explores in his games never fails to hook me all the way to the end. While most of his games, from a gameplay stand point, are nothing stellar, as a whole they are phenomenal, at least in my eyes. Flower Sun and Rain is, as a game, probably the worst I've played, coming from Suda 51, but to say that I didn't enjoy it would be a lie...

 The game puts you in the shoes of Sumio Mondo, a Searcher. His job? Searching for stuff, it's also what defines him, he will search for everything and anything until he finds it. In this adventure, he is hired by Edo, the manager at the Flower, Sun and Rain hotel, in order to stop a plane from blowing up from a terrorist attack. Delving much deeper would mean to spoil the fantastically bizarre setting of the game, but needless to say, as every Suda 51 game, it can get quite confusing, specially taking into account that this is a pseudo-sequel to The Silver Case, a game that was never published over here. NPCs come in the form of guests at the hotel, each one has their own weird traits, there's a kid who keeps breaking the fourth wall,  Edo himself, who grows continually frustrated as the days goes by, Stephan, a writer obsessed with Soccer, etc. The game is divided in 18 requests, each one taking place in a different day(Or is it?) that begins with Mondo being woken up by the manager, and then as he tries to make his way to the airport but gets stopped by other people who require Sumio's services, finishing with the plane exploding in the sky. The setting and the characters were so engaging, that I kept pushing through even though the gameplay was so dull.

 Most of the Suda 51 games that we got were action games, this is not. Since Sumio is a Searcher, the whole game has you searching for stuff, usually culminating in a puzzle of sorts. Puzzles come in three varieties: Reading, Arithmetical and Mixed. At the start of the game you are given a 47 page brochure of the Hotel, and most of the Puzzles have you finding, through hints, the page in which the numbers you require are. Sometimes it's as easy as finding the number, sometimes you have to decipher it, or figure out how to use the numbers mentioned in the article. There is a lot of reading involved. Arithmetical puzzles are, as the name suggest, easy math problems, and you just have to input the resulting number. Lastly, the Mixed variety has you finding the numbers and then doing simple math with it. Each day also features 3 extra puzzles, rule of the thumb is: If these three are easy, then the storyline puzzles will be hard, but if these three are hard, then the story-related puzzles will be easy. Doing these is entirely optional, and these are invisible to the naked eye, but a radar that you unlock early on will help you finding them. Clearing them will unlock alternate costumes to use in subsequent playthroughs.

 As a whole, the game is a bit dull. Expect to do a lot, and I do mean A LOT of running around. Plenty of times it's done on purpose, and Mondo being quite self-conscious, will complain about it, just like the player. As a matter of fact, there's a lot of parallelisms between gamers and Mondo, as a Destructoid Article very well described. Gameplay is very dull, the final day in particular has you solving 23 different math problems, they are not even hard, but they are dull, repetitive and feel like filler, but in the end, I felt satisfied. I felt that treading through each puzzle was worth it.

 Graphics are a very mixed bag, usually indoors look alright, but outdoors are very plain and simple. Textures are very pixelated, which is impossible to ignore when the game zooms in. Character models are very stylized, and personally, I thought the style was great. Music is... very odd, there are some very suiting tones, but there are some that are quite grating to the ears(Take the music used in the Hotel's nearby outdoors for example), but it does fit the whole weirdness of the setting. There is no voice acting, but whenever characters speak, a garbled, distorted musing plays, not unlike Killer 7's, although these make even less sense. While Gameplay, Graphics and Sound are passable on their own, alongside the script they all add up to the atmosphere, and it works.

 Flower, Sun and Rain is a very difficult game to recommend, definitely not for everyone. If you love weird games that have quirky characters, mysterious settings and odd situations, like Deadly Premonition or any Suda 51 game, then it's worth a look, otherwise you might not "get" the game.
 6.0 out of 10.