We Need To Talk About Final Fantasy VII
23 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
in Opinion Tags: Final Fantasy, Square Enix, video games
Yesterday, I flooded the page with my ramblings on how we kinda need to just get over Sephiroth. Today, I’m going to splurge about some of the things that bug me about other characters from Final Fantasy VII, or their popular perception, to be precise.
Again, spoiler warning.
Cloud Strife
Cloud’s not emo, he’s just misunderstood. No, really, he is.
In the original game Cloud is a stoic mercenary, serving as your basic aloof badass for hire. But as he interacts with Tifa and Aerith, he shows a subtle emotional side, and a more traditionally heroic devotion.
As the game progresses, Sephiroth’s torture reveals more of Cloud’s true self, and his journeying loosens his tight-lipped persona. He becomes a forthright, angry, driven hero.
He’s not emo. Oh sure, he mopes. But considering he never achieved his dream, saw his hometown burned to cinders by his childhood hero, lost his mum in that blaze, almost lost his childhood crush, was captured by an evil scientist, brutally experimented on for five years, then broke out and was powerless to stop his best friend from being gunned down in front of him and all this trauma pushed him so far into despair his mind broke and had to create a false persona just to get by, I think he’s allowed the odd sad time.
I don’t mind that they undid a lot of his development for Advent Children. The idea that without Sephiroth to motivate him and his contraction of Geostigma he would regress into a more misanthropic thing makes sense for his character, even if it was a deliberate choice to make him more marketable.
But it did probably start the “Cloud is an emo” thing as a majority ruling on him. It doesn’t help that he’s fairly mopey in Kingdom Hearts and Dissidia too.
The point stands! Cloud: not emo. Cloud: severely emotionally damaged guy. Difference. There is one.
Tifa Lockhart
Stupid Tifa. She can’t cope without Cloud. Her entire character is based around her relationship to him.
Except it’s he who can’t cope without her, and Tifa had a definite, distinct character. The task she chose to devote herself too was helping Cloud when his mind started to fall apart at the seems.
See, the Nibelheim incident in which CLoud lost his mother and hometown, Tifa lost her hometown, parents and friends too. Plus she nearly died at the hands of Sephiroth. She lost more in Nibelheim than Cloud did, and where did she end up? Running a bar in the slums, part of an eco-terrorist organisation. Helping to facilitate the deaths of hundreds of people due to her undying hatred of ShinRa.
When Cloud comes along, she suspects something’s up. Seeing as he’s one of the few surviving pieces of her past, she naturally tries to keep him around. Tifa gradually realises that Cloud is conflating his history with Zack’s, and when that’s revealed to Cloud one of her last remaining links to her childhood and one of her friends she’s made while travelling completely breaks down.
If you wouldn’t stop to help Cloud in the same situation, you are a heartless bastard.
It’s pretty trendy, particularly on the internet, to bash any female character who admits to any emotion or commits a “girly” action as being a weak, whiny princess in need of rescue.
And that’s really gotta stop. The Final Fantasy heroines since number IV have had strength. But it’s an inner strength. The ability to take all the hit that’s slung at them, which is often just as bad or worst as the protagonist, and still be on the front lines, acting as emotional support for the men.
That’s what Tifa’s got. Maybe we expect more from her because she’s an Amazonian style barefist fighter. But that’s unreasonable. Tifa’s strength isn’t just physical, it’s emotional. Without her to help him, Cloud would never have got his shit together.
Aerith Gainsborough
Like Sephiroth, every time Aerith appears outside of the original, she’s got a completely different personality from the original game. She was a flighty, flirty pixie always willing to put herself in danger and trying to get Cloud to open up by being really forward.
She’s not a saintly, quiet girl always praying for happiness and peace and puppy dogs and rainbows.
I get why she’s portrayed like that. They’re trying to make her be more of an Ideal. She’s the mystical force that opposes the evil of Sephiroth and Jenova. True, once she’s in the Lifestream she is hinted to have called the Lifestream forward to protect the planet, but that’s doesn’t mean her personality has to change.
Especially seeing as none of the spinoffs have her in a position to really be a messiah. It’s worst in Kingdom Hearts, and it shows up in Crisis Core (which I can kinda forgive because she was just 14/15 at the time, and presumably exposure to Zack opened her up a bit).
Although actually Advent Children might have made the best choice by having her as a “presence” rather than having her showing up to psychically converse with Cloud in a way closer to her original form.
Vincent Valentine
Shut up about this guy. Seriously. I get it. He’s pretty, he’s tragic and he looks badass. But he was the weakest character in VII and dramatically, he’s Cloud with the names in his backstory changed.
His game sucked, and while he’s still cool, he’s overplayed. Not because he’s ever really been written badly or overused, the fans have just built him up too much. He’s Final Fantasy‘s Boba Fett.
Cid Highwind
Seriously, this guy’s thrice as awesome as you remember him.
We Need To Talk About Sephiroth
22 Feb 2012 4 Comments
in Opinion Tags: Final Fantasy, narrative design, Square Enix, video games
Look, I get it. Sephiroth is a genuinely good bad guy. He’d menacing and effective and actually got a few victories in. Plus, he’s pretty, got great hair, looks good in that leather coat and is a pretty boy. He appeals to guys and girls, either as cool and sexy or as an iconic, memorable character.
And you either came to him through the original game where he was probably one of the first complex and interesting villains you’d been presented to at your young age, or through later media where he appeared and showed himself capable of taking down even the most powerful hero with ease.
And I love Sephiroth too. I do. Final Fantasy VII was my first gaming experience with a real story and characters deeper than Mario. I get it.
But we need to talk about Sephiroth.
I want to talk about a couple of things. One, why he’s placed on such a pedestal. Two, does he really deserve it? And three, why Sephiroth has never proved himself to live up to his legacy outside of the original game.
By the way, I’ll be laying down spoilers for a pretty good chunk on Final Fantasy stuff. Just, be warned, OK?
Why we love Sephiroth
The Playstation One did a lot of things. It pushed the technology much further than ever before in terms of data storage, graphical capability and sound quality to a point where the PS1 could stand toe-to-toe with the PC. And with this power also came room. Room to be bigger and better than ever.
Final Fantasy VII did just that. It was a game on a scale virtually unheard at the time, and in terms of narrative, design & mechanical depth and range, blew out the entire previous six games of the series. It introduced the JRPG to the west and turned Final Fantasy from a Japanese series constantly playing second banana to Dragon Quest into a world wide mega phenomena. To this day, the name Final Fantasy is synonymous with JRPGs.
And a big part of that industry changing game was its villain. He’s a tragic, fallen hero who snapped and is now back from the dead, trying to attain Godhood which he believes to be his by divine right. Sephiroth is also heavily involved in the backstories of Cloud and Tifa, two of the game’s main protagonists.
And, just look at the guy. The long hair, the glowing eyes, the gigantic sword, the badass coat. He is effortlessly cool. Plus, he’s a lefty, which automatically makes him better.
Not only did he cut a bloody and totally unexpected swathe through the ShinRa Building, killing the game’s then current villain President Shinra like it was nothing, impale the mighty Midgar Zolom on a tree and get pretty much half the ShinRa Army chasing down *rumours* of him, he also killed a character.
Aerith (because that is her name). We hardly knew ye. The flirty, flighty pixie with the healing magic & the staff. She’s the heroine. She doesn’t die. She gets with Cloud. That’s how stories work.
But no, Sephiroth kills one of the major characters less than halfway through the game like it’s no big deal. And he’s able to manipulate Cloud into doing exactly what he wants.
He’s even got control of Jenova, a world conquering parasite of cosmos power that he uses to make boss monsters.
Sephiroth doesn’t die. He’s killed five years before the game, then just becomes a living psychic God. You kill him again, but he’s back in Advent Children. When you “win” against him in Kingdom Hearts, he’s not hurt at all, but amused.
And in Crisis Core (the only spinoff to actually use him well and not take a dump all over his character) we get to see his original personality. Aloof, powerful, snarky, but ultimately a compassionate man with a real warmth for his friends that gets tormented with his own inner demons and existential angst.
Hell, Genesis from Crisis Core is basically a third-rate Sephiroth knock off, and Kadaj from Advent Children is literally a fraction of Sephiroth’s power.
Sephiroth is awesome. I get it. I really do. But he has to go away now.
My problems with Sephiroth
As anybody with a basic understanding of narrative will tell you, stories have to end. Stretch them out and the ideas and passion for them disappear. And as many more people can tell you, overexposure to anything diminishes its effect.
And that’s Sephiroth’s problem. He’s been used too much and showed up in too many places for his character to have that same impact. Advent Children was a fun, noisy, fanservice-y mess. Its plot is laughable, the new villains generic and token.
But Sephiroth is in it. At the end you get to watch Cloud and Sephiroth duke it out in high quality animation. Those battles in Final Fantasy? That’s what they really looked like. They looked like Advent Children.
My problem isn’t with this. I love the fight scenes. My problem is what ol’ Sephy has to say for himself when he gets there. All he talks about is making Cloud suffer. He’s obsessed. Fixated.
That is completely out of character for him. In the original game, he completely disregards Cloud as anything more than a puppet. He doesn’t know his name, and tortures him just to break a bug that’s proving meddlesome. Despite the brief time Sephiroth was a part of Cloud’s past, and the fact that Cloud was his killer, Sephiroth did not care. Cloud and co. were beneath him.
It’s the same in Kingdom Hearts and the original Dissidia. Sephiroth’s reason for living is to fight Cloud. To make Cloud suffer. That’s not Sephiroth. That’s an excuse for Sephiroth to show up.
At this point he’s appearing because he’s popular, not because there’s a reason for him to.
The exception is Crisis Core, where he’s relegated to being a secondary character. An important one, and he gets a good amount of screentime, but he acts in a way that’s consistent with the Sephiroth we fell in love with. If anything, Crisis Core builds on Sephiroth’s character, just like it did Zack’s.
And yeah, he’s still a total badass, but his character has had to be warped to fit him into these works. OK, his presence in Dissidia actually is totally justified, seeing as it had an excuse plot anyway, but the first game still warps him into Cloud’s psycho stalker just so he’ll actually seek out battle with Cloud.
But let’s consider him in the context of other Final Fantasy villains.
Is Sephiroth all that great?
Killing a main character is pretty badass right? It really sets him apart. Well, no. Four playable characters get offed in Final Fantasy II, in Final Fantasy IV Tellah dies trying to kill Golbez, the decoy antagonist. In the same game, Palom and Porom turn themselves to stone to stop one of Golbez’s flunkies from crushing you to death, Cid and Yang nearly get themselves killed and Edward spends most of the game to ill to fight.
Then in Final Fantasy V, Galuf dies in *the* single most badass sequence in Final Fantasy history.
In Final Fantasy VI Shadow can die in the apocalypse Kefka causes.
Let’s look at the achievements of each villain in turn, shall we?
- Sephiroth: Kills 1 Minor Antagonist, wounds another. Kills 1 Major Character. Gains near Godhood. Mindrapes/controls Cloud. Calls a Meteor to destroy the Earth.
- Garland (FFI): Makes A Deal With Demons To Live Forever As A God Of Discord. (Seph wins)
- The Emperor (FFII): His armies conquer the world, are responsible for the deaths of four playable characters. After his death, he conquers Heaven & Hell, leads the armies of Hell to conquer the Earth. (Emperor wins)
- Cloud of Darkness (FFIII): Exists as a nigh-unstoppable force of nature, almost consumes all of existence in a never ending darkness. (Seph wins)
- Zemus (FFIV): Manipulates Golbez into almost conquering the world to commit total genocide. When he dies, he comes back as the living embodiment of hate. (Seph wins)
- Exdeath (FFV): Has power over the Void. Can and does suck entire worlds into the Void, a place of total non-existence as part of his plot to destroy all of existence. Has the heroes powerless in the final battle before wibbly wobbly friendship magic frees them. Also kills a major character (technically 1/5 of the playable cast). (Exdeath wins)
- Kefka (FFVI): Kills the ruler of the world (Emperor Gestahl), takes out demigod-like Espers like they’re flies, absorbs the power of 3 Goddesses and reduces them to slaves, causes the apocalypse & disheartens the heroes so much they disband for a year. That’s right, halfway through the game, Kefka wins. the one character who reunites them, Celes, was seconds away from committing suicide before she decided to put the band back together. (Kefka WINS.)
- Ultemicia (FFVIII): By the time you even know she exists, she’s in the process of tearing apart the Space/Time Continuum. In the final battle, the characters have to spend every second forcing themselves to not be dragged into the timestream. Ultemicia is a hair’s breadth from destroying time. She’s been twisting centuries of history to suit her purpose and you don’t even hear her name until disc 4. (Ultemicia wins)
- Kuja (FFIX): Destroys and entire planet, orchestrates war among the four major civilisations of the world, makes it to the heart of creation and is seconds from destroying everything that ever existed ever before you arrive. (Kuja wins)
So in terms of villainous acts, Seph’s pretty middling in his actual deeds. He’s got the power of nostalgia, style and being the first for many of us that give him that umph. Not that he’s a bad villain. Sephy in Final Fantasy VII is still one of my favourites in all gaming. Outside of the original game however, he’s way too often lazily written and badly mishandled.
There. The spiel I needed to get off of my chest about Sephiroth. I hope it was mostly coherent. What do you think? See that comment box? Good place to let me know.
Ace Attorney Twitter Battle
18 Feb 2012 2 Comments
in Uncategorized Tags: Ace Attorne, Capcom, Humour, Twitter, video games
OK, there was a hashtag battle between me, a Miles Edgeworth RPer (@High_Prosecutor) and a Phoenix Wright RPer (@ObjectionLawyer) on Twitter the other day I thought I’d share with you all.
By the way, not only does it spoil pretty much all of the games, there’s a good chance you won’t get what’s going on unless you already know the Ace Attorney continuity. So, Ace Attorney fans, here you are. Enjoy.
Ace Attorney News Roundup
04 Feb 2012 2 Comments
in News Tags: Ace Attorney, Capcom, films, foreign language films, Gyakuten Saiban, Marvel, Megaman, video games
Yay for Ace Attorney! There’s been a few tantalising bits of news recently (no, not loacalisation plans for AAI2 or Professor Layton vs Ace Attorney) and I’ve rounded them up here, hence the name, for y’all to look at.
First of all, the film, Gyakuten Saiban is it’s currently known. Probably more due to the film studio than Capcom, who’ve recently crossed the line into complete trolls, the film will be getting international release (probably DVD only, don’t get too excited), with subs and dubs available for the language of your choice.
As another nice bonus, the characters will be known by their translated names in the language in question. So you won’t have to hear about the trials of Ryuichi Naruhodo, you’ll be hearing about Phoenix Wright blasting through the cases and noting down names to pursue further litigation.
Next, we have the announcement of Ace Attorney 5. Technically, this means the two Investigations games are officially Gaiden games and not mainstream entries. I mention this because that’s all the information we have about this. Seriously, that, and the logo below are all we know. To go really out there, I did note that the logo number is red, the colour of Apollo Justice, whereas the colours of the logo for the “Phoenix Arc” were all blue. I wouldn’t read too much into this, but it looks like Mr Justice might be the new protagonist.
This makes sense, Justice was meant to be the new hero and various plot details from games 3 & 4 would make a new Phoenix game feel contrived. I won’t mention what for those that’ve yet to finish the games involved.
Finally, the original trilogy, those being Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright, Justice For All & Trials and Tribulations are going to be released on iOS devices. Whether or not they’ll be iPhone compatible is unknown, the recent iOS port of Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective was iPod Touch and iPad only and it may be the same for this rerelease.
Oh yeah, dudes, they totally released Ghost Trick on iOS devices! I know right?! That game was amazing! It’s by Shu Takumi, creator of the Ace Attorney franchise and is easily the best detective-cum-poltergeist game ever. OK, that’s kinda damning with faint praise, but seriously, it’s a great game that never got great sales anywhere in the world and really deserves more attention. The first two chapters are free, the rest of the game is £7/$10.
Now, to talk a bit more about Capcom. One thing is that they clearly aren’t ready to abandon their international market for Ace Attorney. The film news above, Phoenix Wright getting in Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, and the original trilogy ports to both Wii and iOS devices all show that they’re “testing the water”, not just teasing their fanbase. On the other hand, they really *are* trolling Megaman fans.
They cancelled Mega Man Galaxy 3, he didn’t get into Marvel vs Capcom 3 or Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3‘s expanded roster despite being their classic flagship version, and thought to be pretty much a shoe in. After then using a freakin’ background stage in UMvC3 to suggest he might be DLC, and then gave Zero and Frank West Megaman outfits.
And now, the *new* fighting game crossover they’re doing, Street Fighter X Tekken, recently released a trailer that included footage for new, PS Vita exclusive characters including Pac-Man and the Megaman from the original Megaman‘s North American box art, the one that everyone thinks is just hideous.
Capcom is confusing.
Should I Buy? – Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon
28 Jan 2012 2 Comments
in Review Tags: Broken Sword, Game, Good Old Games, Review, Steam
Oh dear. By the third installment the series was quite clearly in the middle of doing what I call “doing a Matrix”. That is, getting less enjoyable with each subsequent installment.
Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon was an attempt to update the series for a more modern audience. Not by turning it into an action game or a shooter or anything like that, instead it transitioned into full 3D and introduced stealth, sliding blocks puzzles and a strange attempt at platforming to keep things fresh.
Basically, George and Nico and are off doing their thing (Nico trying to interview a guy with an apparent secret about a potentially world ending discovery, which just seems to be how these games start now and George off trying to find a mad scientist in the Congo so he can patent an invention that’ll apparently revolutionise a lot of stuff) but end up investigating different threads of the same mystery.
Said mystery revolves around the Voynich Manuscript, the remnants of the Templars and the supposed powers of ley lines, all tied into the enigmatic Susarro. As usual, it covers quite a wide variety of global locations though the use of the 3D RareWare Engine over the old Virtual Theatre means that nothing really looks special. The game doesn’t look bad, but it’s all kind of uninspiring, which shouldn’t be my reaction to climbing up a waterfall in the Congo.
On the gameplay side, it’s not exclusively using the old adventure game methods found in point-n-clicks and when it does, it’s all in a going through the motions kinda way. The new elements I mentioned above also fail to really work. Sloppy movement controls make stealth harder than it should be, even though it’s basically a game of grandmother’s footsteps. The sliding block puzzles are…well, sliding block puzzles. Nothing special is done with them. they’re just kind of there. And the platforming is just going up to an interactive background element and pressing the appropriate context sensitive button. There’s no skill in making the jump or swinging on the rope.
And the plot? Eh. The characters? A few stand out. The humour? There’s some. It’s not great or widespread. It’s also a rather short game. I can’t really think of a reason to recommend it unless you *really* want more Broken Sword or you buy it as part of a bundle of the series.
Aside from less than stellar writing, pretty much all the problems with this game can be attributed to the game trying to be modernised and innovating on its formula. But the formula wasn’t broken. A bit dusty and battered yes, but still perfectly serviceable with a bit of spit and polish. But it doesn’t seem to be a genre anybody can quite get the hang of these days.
My Best of 2011
04 Jan 2012 1 Comment
in Opinion
I considered doing a 2011 videogame awards thing, but I didn’t actually get to play that many 2011 releases. Instead, here I want to just give a shout out to some of stuff from 2011 I did really enjoy.
Favourite Game of 2011 – Bastion
As I mentioned above, I didn’t get to play a lot of the year’s big releases, Skyrim, Dragon Age 2, Uncharted 3 et al. But, the year’s most impressive indie title was one of the titles I got my hands on. Its beautiful to look at, has a fantastic dynamic narrator with a sexuality-confusingly sexy voice, the year’s flat out best score by composer Darren Korb and tight, fun Action-RPG gameplay. It’s the first showing from Supergiant Games, themselves former developers on mainstream titles and Bastion probably made the biggest impact of any indie title since Angry Birds. Seriously. Buy that game.
Best Example of a Sequel – Batman: Arkham City
I’m not choosing this because I got to play a lot of other sequels this year and compare, but because I’m really struggling to think of a game I’ve played that’s done such a good job of going “big” for the sequel but still holding onto what made the first game great. It’s not flawless, there’s too many new tricks that you’ll pretty much never use and the design is now uniformly “Really Rather Good” instead of “Sodding Excellent”. Also, City shows that developers Rocksteady really do know their Goddamn Bat-Stuff.
Not only that, but they refuse to parrot it ad verbatim or go for the easy portrayals. Remember how Mister Freeze is meant to be an antihero only acting out of concern for his dying wife? So does Rocksteady! Ever wondered how the Penguin and Riddler could be portrayed as interesting villains? Rocksteady know. FYI, the answer is a blend of unrepentant psychopathy, a shit ton of money and not acting like a 2D comic book villian for once. The plot also takes inspiration from a myriad of different stories and adaptations to deliver a unique spin on the Bat-mythos you won’t get anywhere else.
Best way of letting somebody into a genre – Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3
The expanded re-release of MvC3 and the original are both serious, deep beat ‘em ups. What makes them so great for getting into the newbie-unfriendly world of fighting games is the Simple Mode. With this, you can play as most of the characters effectively with just a few buttons. And when you’re not worrying about how to pull off your fancy moves and just able to do them, you can instead learn skills like blocking, team combos, assists, tagging, X Factor and the like and get a proper grasp on how the game works, before you (if ever, cause the game is stupid amounts of fun even just on Simple Mode) decide to move up to Normal Mode. I’ll admit to only buying this game because of PHOENIX GODDAMN WRIGHT but I’m glad I did, because the “must play this game all day every day” work off way after the novelty of OBJECTION!-ing Galactus to death did.
Super Hero Movies – Thor & X-Men First Class
I love me some superheroes. And what I really loved this year was Kenneth Brannagh being unafraid to make Thor be big and grandiose. He also made the brilliant performances by Tom Hiddleston & Chris Hemsworth really work, although the script certainly gave them plenty to work from. Of particular note for me was how Loki, a campy comic book villain, came off as a believable and relatable character. Even moreso than his big, lovable brother Thor.
And X-Men First Class? Not afraid to put its heroes on yellow spandex, which earns it points in my book. Also, it took characters like Magneto, Beast, Mystique & Xavier (who I’ve never formed a connection to in anything) and made me like and care about them. Xavier in particular is charming as all hell. If he were telling me to go save the world from Shaw, I’m pretty sure he could convince me to overcome my innate cowardice easily without using his telepathy.
Other Movies – Sucker Punch, Hanna and In Time
Other than cementing my love for Amanda Seyfried and making me fall in love with Saoirse Ronan and Emily Browning, these three films were to me really, really fun, slick action films with interesting ideas going on behind the main story.
Sucker Punch barely broke even at the Box Office and was despised by most critics. It was Zack Sneider’s first film that wasn’t an adaptation, and at least 937, if not all kinds of awesome. Using multiple layers of dream narrative, we see the lead character Baby Doll fight with a group of similarly hot, badass girls against Steampunk zombie soldiers, orcs, robots, a dragon and gigantic demon samurai statues. Some critics thought the use of attractive women in tight clothing fighting through hordes of battles seemingly torn out of nerd fantasies that were also being exploited as sex workers in another dream layer was misogynistic, but I think they were missing the point. See, the fighting of these dehumanised, vaguely evil, masculine enemies took place when the girls were doing something to strike back against the male dominated environments they were trapped in.
Specifically, they’re using a combination of intelligence, deception and their femininity to get one over on the guys in one layer (and probably the real world) and also destroying the evil, subhuman symbolic males in another, while acting against some kind of time limit. As such, the action is a way of an idealised version of the girls processing their rebellion against the guys. You might think I’m reading too much into it, but Sucker Punch is a film built around symbolism, much like Black Swan was. I think that the symbolism it chooses to use is what got it ignored, which is unfair if true.
Hanna is a generic story of a super-secret super soldier program survivor being hunted down by the US government. Except the hero is a young girl. When she escapes into the world at large, she travels a good stretch of Europe where she essentially has a coming-of-age story, aided by a dysfunctional English family on holiday. It’s a film about Hanna becoming an adult, essentially. Most of the conspiracy plot is even handed off to her father, while Hanna gets to explore the world and find her place in it.
In Time is prove positive, if it were needed, that proper speculative fiction of the type Asimov, Clarke and Heimlein wrote can translate to Hollywood without compromising on the messages and philosophies it delivered in print. It has its problems, and for a film in which the ticking of seconds can be a literal matter of life and death there are a lot of sequences that seem to take improbably long or short times. Its message about unrestrained Capitalism versus Socialism (not Communism) is very topical and well worth hearing. Also, one scene has Amanda Seyfried in her underwear.
My Favourite Trailer/Most Anticipated Film – Ace Attorney
Nope, not The Hobbit, Dark Knight Rises or The Avengers. I’m looking forward to a videogame movie most of all. It’s a Japanese production, known there by the series’ original title Gyakuten Saiban and is being directed by one of the most versatile, prolific and well known Japanese directors, Takashi Miike. Miike hasn’t shied from making this film actually look like Ace Attorney at all, and I have real faith that it’ll be the first truly great videogame movie.
Best Thing on TV – Doctor Who “The Doctor’s Wife”
Neil Freakin’ Gaiman himself wrote an episode of Doctor Who for series six. Less of a typical adventure and more a meditative love letter to the oldest relationship on the show, Gaiman delivered what I firmly believe to be the best thing in Who canon. At least of the new series, I can’t vouch for the old one.
Best Book – The Night Circus
OK, so it’s the only new book I read this year, but it’s still damn good. A period romance set in and around the titular magical circus, Emily Morgenstern’s debut novel might not appeal to those of you who detest a romance story, but she’s clearly got some good stories in her and a talent for telling them. Hey, the guys over at FailBetterGames liked it enough to make a promotional game for it, The Guardian have nominated for a best newcomer award and the BBC have already done a radio adaptation of it. She’s got something going for her. Don’t be surprised if this is the summer hit that explodes into cinema when the Twilight films are gone.
Well folks, that was my highlights of 2011. What were yours? More to the point, how many of them involved penguins?
Should I Buy? – Batman: Arkham City
30 Dec 2011 2 Comments
in Review Tags: Batman, DC, DC Comics, Game, PC, Playstation, Review, Sony, Steam, XBOX
Unless you’re some kind of DC hating Marvel fanboy that gets violent every time they hear the word “Kryptonite”, then yes. Arkham City is the sequel to Rocksteady’s surprise critical and commercial stunner Arkham Asylum from a few years back, and is a good example of a sequel done right. Instead of coasting by and making no real attempt to improve on things, City is bigger and better, with more stuff to do and more ways to do it.
Basically, Quincy Sharp, head of Arkham Asylum in the last game, took credit for your work stopping Joker and got himself elected Mayor of Gotham. Then he walled off an entire district of Gotham, dumped all criminals (insane or otherwise) inside, hired heavily armed mercenaries to police it and put relatively unknown psychiatrist Hugo Strange in charge. A bit suspicious, no? Well, Batman thinks so. Unable to do anything as the Dark Knight, he tries to campaign against it as Bruce Wayne, which results in his incarceration as a political prisoner.
Inside the city, Joker, Two-Face and Penguin have carved out their own criminal empires and there’s a host of other villains running about like Zsasz and Mister Freeze. And you’ll track them down through both the wide open cityscapes and the more familiar claustrophobic building interiors. The cityscape adds a whole new dimension to the game, and I must say is very well designed. See, in the last game you basically guided Bats from one challenge room to another. There were no alternate routes. Even when outside, the enemies were in scripted locations and the spaces too small for more than a handful of viable approaches.
But with the city full of randomly spawning enemies and with no set paths to traverse, the precision artifice of the encounters from the original isn’t present. Not that traversing the cities is a chore, the layout has obviously been carefully designed for both getting around and for you to do your Goddamn Bat-thing when push comes to punch. There’s also a host of new techniques Bats has for getting around in the big wide open, though on foot travel is pretty much irrelevant in the streets.
The interior sections aren’t as tight as the original, nor as long or prominent. With so many new additions to Batman’s arsenal, it’d be difficult to design encounters to compliment this. For example, much is made of the fact that enemies start laying mines. There’s even a short sidequest that gives you a gadget to counter them. But I can only recall one encounter where enemies will actually use them, and even then the explosions are so small and undamaging that *if* you do run over one the most it’ll do is alert the baddies and make you drop a smoke pellet.
Speaking of which! That’s a major change. Now when gun toting enemies see you, you can drop a smoke pellet to instantly become lost and untargetable. Then, you can safely grapple away or use that Bat-Grapple disarm move on all of them and be in a better position than you started in. Relying on it will make most encounters with gun thugs laughably easy.
Of course, you can choose whether or not to use these balance…unbalancers and it’s handy to have them when things turn Bat-shaped. The only real problem with Bat’s expanded arsenal of tricks and little things that go buzz and hurt bad men is that there’s so many you’ll often forget you have them. When you’re up on that ledge, do you do an inverted takedown, Sonic Shock Batarang, sneak up on them, rig some explosive gel, attack through a crumbling wall, shock him by charging the surprisingly prevalent electromagnets, glide kick him, Batarang him, Remote Batarang him, Reverse Remote Batarang him, use a cryo grenade, use a cluster cryo grenade, disable his gun, remote detonate his mine, remote electric shock him, use a Sonic Shockwave, Glide Boost or throw a smoke grenade at him? Your choice. Yeah.
The main story is longer, and doesn’t get tired. It won’t (and indeed, hasn’t) win any awards but it’s solid fare for a Batman tale. It mostly takes leads from Knightfall and No Man’s Land, though isn’t afraid to mix up established continuity points when it wants to. The villains are integrated well, and the attention to detail with the Batman mythos is fantastic. The boss battles are particularly intense, especially given how lacklustre they were in the last game. Mister Freeze might qualify for both cleverest and most frustrating for years. In the best possible way.
Riddler’s challenges are back. There’s obviously a lot more of them, and now getting a lot of the trophies is a matter of solving a small puzzle. These also tie into a bigger sidequest that involves saving people from Saw-style rooms and tracking down Riddler’s goons to interrogate. It’d take ages to track it all down and complete. Even longer if for some weird reason you don’t Google the solutions.
Adding into ways to extend your playtime are New Game Plus, the additional Challenge Maps & campaigns, not to mention there’s DLC that makes Catwoman, Robin and Nightwing. I haven’t played any of it, so I can’t vouch for it.
But yes, this game is bigger and, in most ways, better than the original. Go buy it. Get hunting for those tantalising hints for a sequel.
The Dr Who MMO Preview is live!
22 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in News Tags: Doctor Who, free to play, Game, MMO, Preview
Hello Whovians! The guys who made the free to play Puzzle Pirates have just launched the playable preview for the new Dr Who MMO, Worlds in Time! I’ve been playing it the two days since it’s launch, and you’re all free to do likewise. Find it here at http://www.doctorwhowit.com
It’s pretty fun, and looks great. Basically, the Doctor recruits a whole bunch of people to help him repair time. Somebody broke it. To do so, you have to run around a lot and sonic things. Each different type of action has a different minigame attached that you have to complete to progress. To make them easier, you craft upgrades for your screwdriver.
Unfortunately, doing missions, unlocking the shards for rewards, crafting advanced upgrades and even buying expensive clothes requires energy costs. Currently you get 50 a day for free, that recover at a rate of about one every half hour. Getting more costs money. The lowest bundle is 600 of such Chronons for $3, so it’s value for money at least. Still, 600 energy would last about a week I reckon, so if you really get into playing it, it’ll be a regular purchase.
Much as I like the game, I’m not entirely happy with this method of making their money. I don’t begrudge them for making it, I just know I’ll be regularly paying these small amounts for a long time.
But seriously, try it out anyway. And if you see a Silurian who looks like a space cowboy called Nemo, say hi, he’s one of the devs. And if you see a Catman called Pho, say hi cause that’s me!
Super Special Awesome Retro Review! – Vandal Hearts
21 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in Review Tags: Game, Playstation, Review, RPG
Alright, this is the one I really wanted to write. It’s possibly the game from my childhood that means more to me than any other. Even Final Fantasy VII, a game which started a lifelong love tale between me and that series.
Vandal Hearts is a PS1 Turn Based Strategy game from the Before Times. It was a barren, mostly internet-less time. I hadn’t even heard of it when I played this with my dad. Well, I say with my dad. It was more me watching over his shoulder and offering up suggestions.
It tells the story of Ash Lambert, a policeman in the capital of a corrupted democracy that was built on the back of a meaningful revolution to depose the corrupt Empire that used to exist. Yeah, basically governments are shit in this game. Through a series of events, Ash and co. end up in a half political, half magical battle to help determine the fate of the land. Along the way you’ll conveniently recruit four swordsmen, four archers, two black mages and two white mages from whom to build your party.
See, unlike games of this ilk where you’re able to rotate your characters through a bunch of classes or equip them with a bunch of different things to give them different skills and such each of your characters has a class that they can start in, and then choose one of two wildly different classes to change into once they reach Level 10. The interplay of these different classes forms the strategic depth of the game. To quoth the game itself:
“Sword defeats Bow,
Bow defeats Air,
And Air defeats Sword.
Armour is strong but slow,
Mages are weak but wise,
And Monks use word and claw.”
Thus, you have to choose which balance of classes to make a team that can handle all situations. At least, that’s the theory. See, as hefty as punch as the Armour Class packs, it’s way too slow to serve on the front lines, can’t scale high jumps and gets torn apart by mages, which are a huge late game threat. And while monks have no weaknesses, they’re also not good at anything either. Weaker than Swordsmen, who’re the average fighters, and worse mages than the mages, they’re completely pointless.
No, there’s really only one or two combos that “work”, but applying the rock-paper-scissors while also keeping note of other, standard tactical challenges of this type of game makes for an enjoyable experience. It’s also a lot better balanced, as the limited combinations for both you and the enemy, plus the narrative driven nature meaning you can never play the same map twice means that everything from the terrain to the enemy variety can be much better designed to offer up an interesting challenge.
The downside? There’s exactly one sidequest. The half a dozen challenge maps it opens up are the only battles available outside of the main story. The structure of the game means that all your characters should always be at just the right level, so nobody’s in danger of getting left behind. And the six fairly meaty chapters should keep you interested in the challenge if not the story (which is pretty damn decent for what it is). Then again, when you do finish it Ash becomes a unique class that may as well be known as the “You Win” class, though you’ll only be able to use it in the final few battles.
One thing I love about the story is you know how the political intrigue in a Japanese strategy and/or role-playing game inevitably gives way to world ending eldritch horrors? Not here. Though magic certainly has a role to play in the story, and some of the political stuff breaks down towards the end, they actually form quite a good interplay with magic being subservient.
So yeah, that’s Vandal Hearts. A fun little rare strategy title that’s still my favourite of the genre. What it lacks in quantity of content is makes up for in quality. It seems others agree, because it’s like £100 on eBay.
Of course, I do have a copy. Two, actually. My dad keeps the original (still kinda working) disc we played together safe at his (the original case and booklet long since lost and broken) while I have a working copy that I just can’t resist replaying from time to time.
This holds a honoured in both my memories and on my shelf. It’s an experience I’d love to share with more people. Someday maybe.
Super Special Awesome Retro Review! – Mystic Quest
19 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in Review Tags: Final Fantasy, Game, Nintendo, Retro Gaming, Review, RPG, Square Enix
Time for part two. Another review of something I love but you haven’t got any reasonable chance of ever buying!
Mystic Quest is technically part of the venerable Final Fantasy series. An entry for the SNES, it was meant as a kind of “baby’s first JRPG” and you know what, it was my very first JRPG. Not that I knew that’s what it was at the time. It was a game I played through with my dad when I was a wee babe of about five.
It’s a very simple story, the Dark King wants to conquer the world by sending a different monster to each of the four elemental Crystals that keep the land running and draining their power dry. So yeah, it stole the plot of Final Fantasy I. You play as Benjamin (renameable), a boy who’s village doesn’t even hang around for a cameo in the intro before getting destroyed so he can have his origin story before a mysterious old man tells you to go sort shit out. Things never get complicated, and it never takes itself seriously.
Along the way, you travel four different areas, one for each of the Crystals, and meet a new companion for each area. Then there’s a mini dungeon and a proper one to wade through, as well as a companion to journey with and some equipment to find.
Instead of having huge equipment lists or spells, everything’s simplified down into a few groups and almost all your new gear is found. Spells are White, Black or Wizard magic, and weapons are Ranged, Sword, Bomb, Claw or Axe type (though you can’t get ranged weapons). Each enemy is weak to at least one of these, so battles are mostly about finding the right tool to take out the enemies before you. It’s not a challenging game, it was meant for stupid Americans (no, literally).
That’s not to say it’s not fun. The game goes with an exploration route. Each of your weapon types has a special ability outside of battle. Swords can hit switches in statues, axes chop down trees, bombs blow things up and claws climb and grab things. This lets dungeons be more than just walking through corridors and breaks things up a lot more than you’d think it would.
There’s not much to hold the interest of an adult that’s got any kind of experience with games, except for nostalgia. Well, if it were released as an iOS App, I reckon it’d do pretty well. It had some great music, and it’s light enough to be enjoyable on the go, especially if they added a quicksave system. Hm. Or maybe as a downloadable game for the 3DS. Yeah. Nintendo, Square Enix, bring back Mystic Quest!
And you see my blogroll over there, click on Type A Little Faster. It’s a weekly writing/fantasy/sci-fi/film/videogame/whatever nerdy stuff the author has in mind blog. Do it. Do it now. This I command!
Super Special Awesome Retro Review! – Guardian’s Crusade
17 Dec 2011 1 Comment
in Review Tags: Game, Playstation, Review, RPG
Hi there all you wonderful, wonderful people and Geoff Albertson. I’ve decided that as something a bit special for Christmas, I’m going to write three reviews for games I loved as a kid that you pretty much can’t get these days. What does this do for you guys? Absolutely nothing! Unless you like the sound of them so much you buy them for ridiculous amounts of money online, I suppose.
The first of them is an old child’s JRPG I had back when I were a lad in ye olden days o’ the original Playstation. Guardian’s Crusade, known as Knight & Baby in Japan is about a knight and a pink baby monster. Maybe the Japanese has a more helpful name. Basically, you’re a young man in your home village who finds a baby pink monster and what is supposed to be some kind of God, but looks more like a rabbit-man decrees that YOU, young Knight, must take the creature to the Tower of the Gods.
To be honest, it’s never really more complex than that. When the plot proper kicks in, it does have some fun subverting what a kid might expect. But this is on the level of having the guy with opposite armour colours, a sword slung upside down, and a giant monster that you have to duel be called Darkbeat and actually be another hero you just had the misfortune to meet on the battlefield first. Not that he ever joins you, you only get Knight and Baby on your team (though your fairy friend Nehani occasionally pitches in and there are the Living Toys), and you only get direct control of Knight.
The battling is turn based JRPG stuff. Baby acts based on how much it likes you and a few vague commands you can give him. The only thing you can do other than attacking and using items is deploying your Living Toys. These little clockwork critters have different effects, like attacks, healing buffs and a few special ones like one that serves as a world map, a thief and even one that only exists to give a running commentary of the match when summoned. Collecting these forms one of the game’s few sidequests, which is actually a pretty fun one, one that spans the whole game and has a super special awesome secret toy hidden away, but the lack of endgame side content’s pretty noticeable.
This thing looked dated even back when I was playing it, but it’s serviceable. You can at least tell what things are. What it may lack in graphical fidelity it makes up for in a nice variety of locations. From tiny towns and bustling ports to underground caves and spooky swamps, Dwarven cities and abandoned castle, ridiculously stereotyped “primitive islanders” to an arctic town of talking penguins living in igloos. Yeah. That’s a thing. Talking penguins. Sounds cooler now, doesn’t it?
The game isn’t really challenging. At all. Well, the final boss is a three parter that might trip you up a bit. Maybe. First time through.
Overall, Crusade is a pretty fun, if shallow JRPG with a sense of humour. There’s not really too much to say about it, though I do remember there being an otherwise useless item called the Crucifix that you could use on the tomb of a legendary hero, only to cause the game to freeze. It always fascinated me, and I do wonder what that cut content was.
The next review will probably go up tomorrow, next time for a SNES game.
Oooh…Ebay says the game’s pretty readily available for under £20….hmm…
Should I Buy? – Shadow Hearts Covenant
04 Dec 2011 2 Comments
in Review Tags: Game, Playstation, Review, RPG, Sony
Er, pft. Maybe? Alright, settle in folks.
Actually, before we get started there are some insights that the guys over to Penny Arcade have on this game: http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/10/04
Covenant is the sequel to the PS2 JRPG Shadow Hearts. It’s not a direct continuation of the original game’s story, thankfully, because that was a rather neat little narrative with no need for expansion.
It does take some of the mythology and concepts from the original game, as well as lead hero Yuri, to create a new tale all of its own. And yeah, it’s longer, there’s more characters, the combat’s expanded and better refined, there’s a decent amount of content outside of the main plot, but it’s a bit too sequel-y.
So the new tale sees German military officer Karen called on by Nicolai of the Catholic Church to help defeat a “demon” that’s been defending a town the German Army’s trying to capture. Turns out, said demon is actually Yuri. Nicolai curses him with the Holy Mistletoe, which seals his godly powers and will slowly kill him. Karen decides Nicolai’s not very nice and abandons her position, family and country to help out Yuri. Who has also made friends with an aging puppeteer with a living doll and an intelligent white wolf who also travel with him. No, they never explain how or why.
Probably my biggest disagreement with this game is its shift in tone. By the time you were half an hour into the first game, you were trapped in a village of demon cats, trying to find items for a magical rituals amongst human remains and it set a pretty consistent thematic through-line for the game. This one abandons a lot of the Cthuloid horror for a mix of kitsch comedy and more traditional world domination plots.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the superhero/overmuscled wrestling vampire guy and the hard gay shopkeeper/tailor twins that follow you everywhere, but the game never has great atmosphere. Which is weird, considering that the first half of the game consists of Grigori Rasputin (yes, that Rasputin) leading an ancient cult and seeking Godly power. This would have been perfect for the old Shadow Hearts aesthetic.
And I say first half, because the second disc basically starts up a whole new plot in Japan that spends a lot of time having a much vaguer connection to the first half than when the original game pulled off the continent switching thing.
Alright, on to gameplay. The Judgement Ring is back, now much more easy to customise and it even comes with a variety of modes to suit beginners or more confident players. Instead of only some guys learning preset spells, now there’s a bunch of Materia-like Crests. These also link into a side challenge where you try to arrange them in a grid based on passages from The Book of Solomon for reduced casting costs which is a neat idea if a lot of trial and consulting GameFAQS.
Each character’s unique skills are now gained through character specific sidequests. It’s a nice mix up, but it’s never made clear when or where the item you need is or when the challenge for it is open. Several times, the thing you need to do appears in a dungeon you’ve just cleared out with no clues. It can be a real Guide Dang It to be looking up a puzzle solution on GameFAQS only to realise you’ve now got to load up a save from two hours ago because you’ve missed out on a Wolf Bout for Blanca.
There’s a new combo system in place, where you make several characters act one after the other to rack up bonus damage. Though this is always the best way to handle a tough enemy, I could only ever be bothered to use it to take down bosses (where the added damage can be really substantial). Unfortunately, enemies can do it too, to devastating effect.
The characters are pretty cool, though it’s almost a shame you can only have four in combat. Do you want another reliable physical fighter that can take another few hits? Well then watch Gepetto try to be your primary healer, buffer and black mage! See how your party disintegrates when the boss takes him out!
That said, it’s not too big a complaint and nowhere near as limiting as the three character parties from the original.
The graphics are better and voice acted cutscenes are now standard, though the acting leaves a fair bit to be desired. Also, Yuri was much more interesting when he was a pervy, apathetic bruiser that only cared about fighting that was evolving into a dim but well meaning hero. Here, he doesn’t have a real character arc.
I don’t really think of this game as negatively as I’ve made it sound. It’s still fun, it’s just a different kind of fun. This is ‘solidly made but unspectacular’ rather than ‘flawed gem’. It’s Aliens to Alien. Same universe, different approach, bigger in scope, but somehow loses something in the transition. Not enough to break the deal, but enough to make you pine the simpler days when the attack animations were ridiculously stilted and there were creepy orphanages involved in unholy experimentations.
A simpler time, yes. A better time? Perhaps. Time for tea? Always. And a toast sandwich too? Oh, you’ve twisted my arm.
Should I Buy? – Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3
27 Nov 2011 Leave a Comment
Alright, finally a new videogame review! This one’s a little different. It’s for a new, AAA title. It it a cut-price title, however. So, a full decade after MvC2 Capcom got back together with Marvel to make MvC3. They planned to release a whole host of content as DLC, but the tsunami and earthquake that hit Japan in 2011 forced them to rethink their plans. Instead, they created a new version, with twelve new playable characters, eight new stages, two new online modes, the ability to play as Galactus and rebalanced gameplay. All for less than the price of the original game.
And it’s awesome. See, me and fighting games fell out sometime around Tekken 4, when actual skill became a necessity, rather than being able to have fun with plain ol’ button mashing. Soul Calibur, Street Fighter, all of them were suddenly not catering to guys like me. But MvC3‘s bright, fun gameplay intrigued me and the inclusion of PHOENIX GODDAMM WRIGHT made me put my fears to one side and buy the new version.
While straight up button bashing still doesn’t work, at least it’s discovered a way to let casual fighting fans like me still have fun with the game and pull off awesome moves. When choosing your characters, you can choose between Normal or Simple modes. In Simple, the controls are a lot easier, with one button for combos, one for specials and one for hyper combos. This makes the fighting closer to Super Smash Bros than Street Fighter, and means even the most inexperienced gamer can pick up a controller and have fun. Though this does mean not having access to a bunch of the characters moves, it does help you learn the basics of the game and how to use a character before trying Normal mode.
But if what you want is an in-depth, complex fighting game then UMvC3 will really deliver. Capcom has made a very fast and fun game where you have to consider all kinds of factors beyond the two guys on screen. There’s X Factor, Hyper Combos, Assists and tagging out amongst your group of three. This isn’t a side I’ve been able to get into yet, I’m still just having fun on Simple mode, but it is pretty much unique in making me want to learn the game better so I can use a character’s full range of tricks.
The cast is now a full 48 excluding the two DLC characters. They all have their own style and are very characterful. The little snippets of dialogue between the different characters where’ll they’ll talk smack to each other is great. Ghost Rider even makes an evil lawyer joke to Phoenix Wright.
Although talking of the world’s most badass lawyer, he and several other characters lose their access to the abilities and gimmicks that make them truly useful in battle. To be fair, they are too complex for the Simple mode control scheme to translate, but it can be frustrating if you find yourself using a highly limited version of your favourite characters.
The character choices are deliberately strange in some places, and it’s good to see a game that’ll use characters like Rocket Raccoon and Arthur rather than just loading the roster down with more famous characters that’d play a lot like some existing cast member. And like I already mentioned, PHOENIX GODDAMM WRIGHT. There’s a member of the cast for every play style.
The game has a mission mode that asks you to pull of different types of combos and special moves which I imagine is designed to help you learn the game, but it’s pretty limited. It doesn’t teach you basic combos, when it’s a good idea to use what kind of moves or let you test these skills in a combat situation. It seems to assume you’ll learn all these things yourself. And well, it’s hard to. Those button combinations and combo streams can be hard to remember and pull off.
There is a much more pressing criticism than anything I’ve said above. All sorts of little design choices make me feel like this game is really intended for online gamers. Everything, from little phrasing choices to larger things. It’s a game that you’re clearly expected to play on Normal Mode online, and is just placating others. Only having an arcade and training mode for single player. It’s like I’m being locked into a playpen at an amusement park while everybody else goes to ride the rollercoasters. It’s still fun as hell and I really love it, but it feels like it’s not really *for* me in some ways.
If you’re a really big fan of the original, this is a no-brainer. If you never played 3 and are just interested, then yeah, give it a try. But if you had three and just liked rather than loved it, you may be a little disappointed to pay as much as they’re asking for it.
Should I Buy? – The Night Circus
25 Nov 2011 Leave a Comment
in Review Tags: Book, Books, FailBetterGames, Review, The Night Circus
I know it may seem like I’ve forgotten this site, but I really haven’t. I’ve got no computer of my own right now and I’ve been swamped with work. But now, here it is. A new review. For a book. Alright, so it’s only almost service as usual.
Erin Morgenstein’s The Night Circus is a recent romantic fantasy novel, in which the titular Night Circus is a magical, traveling circus of dazzling sights and experiences. Against this backdrop two rival magicians are pitted against each other in a mysterious game their masters force them to play. The easiest way to find if this is for you is to ask yourself one simple question: do you like romance stories? If so, then this is the book for you. A pair of star crossed lovers in immaculate and beautiful setting with immaculate and beautiful clothes get all gooey eyed over each other.
Alright, so that’s overly simplistic and a little unfair. The characters are deeper than that, although of course the romance does eventually consume the plot at the expense of all the interesting secondary characters, mind bending circus acts and subplots. I can’t really call this a criticism, because it’s kind of the point of romantic fiction. And despite how I’d have preferred the plot to go in a different direction given its internal mythology, I was still interested enough to read until the end.
Looking over what I’ve done on this site, it may seem strange that I picked this book up, but I was hooked by the failbettergames online game version which I believe is still open. It’s a great supplemental experience to the novel. Go check it out.
Morgenstein’s certainly got a knack for description. She makes everything seem beautiful and enchanting without it ever descending into over flowery purple prose. The characters never really sold themselves to me, but the rotating cast don’t contain a single grating member. The pace is kept up nicely with the short chapters, though the book will quite happily jump around between 1901 and 1902 at times, meaning that it can be a little difficult to keep the internal timeline in your head.
My verdict? A-. Really good, could have been great if it’d expanded on its own world and characters a bit more. However, it is a well paced, well written fantasy novel that’ll hook you in for the ride given half a chance.
A Very Special Episode – Movember and Men’s Health
04 Nov 2011 1 Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: Charity, Men's Health, Movember
This is a bit of a break from the norm. I generally try to keep personal issues like politics and stuff out of this site, but this is a special case for an unambiguously good cause. My friend and occasional buythatgame writer Neil is taking part in Movember, a special event to raise awareness (and some cash) for men’s health.
Here’s the link to his donation page. Even if you can’t afford to give anything, at least click the share buttons to let others know who might be willing to help.
Should I Buy? – Professor Layton And Pandora’s Box
04 Nov 2011 Leave a Comment
in Review Tags: DS, Game, Nintendo, Profe, Review
Also known as Professor Layton and the Diabolic Box because apparently Americans will buy games based around logic and puzzles but Pandora’s Box is too obscure a reference. Then again, the box in the title is never called the Diabolical Box and very rarely as Pandora’s Box. I can understand how the Elysian Box (as in the Elysian Fields of the Greek Paganist afterlife) would be a tad too obscure though.
I really do admire Layton's hat
Mythology aside, this is the sequel to Professor Layton and the Curious Village. The differences between this game and the last are mostly in the areas of plot as you’re still wandering around solving puzzles on the slightest justification.
How British is Professor Layton (despite being a Japanese game)? Brewing tea is a gameplay mechanic. Yeah.
The plot this time around concerns Luke and Layton investigating the mystery surrounding the titular box, which leads them onto a train with a destination not marked on any map. The art and music haven’t undergone any significant upgrade, everything’s just a vehicle for the puzzles. That doesn’t mean they aren’t still fantastic, just nothing has changed significantly between the first game and this.
The puzzles are all fine and rely less on tricky wordplay, but the story doesn’t pan out as well as the first one. It has the same big ending twist, but its fraught with logical problems and doesn’t have the same kind of foreshadowing that the first one did.
If you want puzzles wrapped in a charming package any entry in the series would do, personally I’d say start with the first game. Not as a matter of continuity, I’d just say it worked better.
Give this one a try
Ace Attorney Movie Trailer
29 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment
in News, Opinion Tags: Ace Attorney, cinema, DS, Film, Game, Japan, movies, Nintendo
The actual video itself was given to me by a friend and is apparently an ‘unlisted’ video on Youtube. I guess this means I shouldn’t go handing the link out, but once it’s made official I’ll embed it here.
There’s more than a few things that caught my eye about it. The first and most obvious is that director Takeshi Miike has embraced the animesque visuals of Ace Attorney just like Kenneth Brannagh embraced Thor‘s camp elements. This really looks like Ace Attorney blown up onto the big screen.
Remember Lotta Hart’s ridiculous hair? It’s bigger than it was in the game. The costumes of characters like Edgeworth and Maya Fey? Even Phoenix’s spiky hair. They are all here. And it is glorious.
Not that it all looks like some campy parody. In its own way, it also looks like a slick courtroom drama. Sure, a hugely dramatic and stylised one, but that’s an integral part of the series and it looks like it’s being treated that way.
Another thing is the characters. Sure, Phoenix, Maya, von Karma and Edgeworth were prominent. I also caught glimpses of Larry Butz, Dee Vaquez, Gumshoe, Mia and the aformentioned Lotta Hart. I was really surprised by Vasquez’s appearance. She’s from the third case of the original game, the one that doesn’t actually fit into the overarching plot.
Presumably then, the film will cover the four cases that comprise the first ‘arc’. That seems like too much for one film. It would seem logical that some of the cases are only dealt with in cutaway, montage-esque sections or that the film will be in two parts.
Hopefully the film will get an international release (DVD only, I’m not deluded enough to think it’s get a theatrical run in Europe or the US). However, I am completely behind this project and I have a lot of faith in Miike’s vision.
Perhaps, and now this is heavily deluding myself, perhaps if this film and Wright’s appearance in Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 are popular enough outside of Japan, we’ll see international releases for Professor Layton vs Ace Attorney and Ace Attorney Investigations II: Miles Edgeworth!
Stuff you should really be into
26 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment
in Opinion
Nope, still not got anything to review yet. However! There are some things you should check out, so here’s a list.
Echo Bazaar
No I will not shut up about this. It’s a brilliantly written casual game you can play completely free while just pissing about on the internet. Why don’t you play this yet?
The Guild
A web series created by nerd queen Felicia Day after a two year World of Warcraft addiction. It’s a clever, deadpan take on MMORPG’s, gamers and gaming culture with a genuine knowledge of and affection for games. So it’s not just people saying nerds are shit
Dr Horrible’s Sing Along Blog
Inspired in part by The Guild, this is a short web superhero musical by Joss Whedon staring Nathan Fillion, Neil Patrick Harris and Felicia Day. It’s also full of catchy tunes, great dialogue is just a blast to watch. You can find it for free on Youtube, but there’s also a DVD you can buy with a musical commentary among other cool features.
The comics for The Guild and Dr Horrible’s Sing Along Blog
Darkhorse hosts the tie-in comics for not only these, but also Mass Effect and Serenity. You can buy them all at Darkhorse Digital. While they’re not of the highest quality for comics, they’re certainly fun (though the Mass Effect ones are the ‘worst’ as it were.) There’s also some Neil Gaiman comics on there, and I judge you for every moment in which you don’t read them. Speaking of which…
The Sandman
Think of a comic book. This is better than that. An epic series of 10 volumes told over nine years about the titular Prince of Dreams, The Sandman flits from urban horror to swashbuckling fantasy to nightmares to historical drama and back to 90′s New York in time for tea and it all fits ridiculously well. Not only is it one of, if not the greatest thing from comic books, but of all fiction ever. Really, it’s that good.
Dr Solar, Man of the Atom
I did mean to mention this along with all the stuff from Darkhorse before I got caught up in talking about The Sandman. Sorry about that. Dr Solar is nominally a superhero comic in that he gains superpowers from a freak accident and fights creatures that terrify the populace in a costume. But it’s not really about that, he’s like a cross between Green Lantern and Dr Manhattan. It’s a series that approaches the superhero story from a more human angle. It’s worth checking out.
Munchkin
A card game that comes in a variety of flavours including vanilla Fantasy, Pirate, Sci-Fi, Cthulhu Mythos, Cowboy, Kung Fu, Super Spies and Zombies. It’s a humorous game in which you and your friends compete to get to level 10 first. To do so will often require your mewling little levels ones to band together and help each other, only to then backstab and cheat to the top. It’s a lot of fun once it gets into the swing of things, though there’s always the one guy who gets the short end of the stick and ends up moping. He’s just not cheating hard enough.
Zombies!!
Are you sick of shooting and hacking zombies into small, gooey chunks in first and third person shooters and sandbox games? Well now you can fight the horde in a board game! You and a few friends try to fight your way to the Helipad in a randomly generated city with power cards, ammo counters and all that sort of thing. It’s fun, but falls short of being innately great. It depends who you play with. A bunch of chatty and competitive (and hopefully drunk) friends? Great! A bunch of people you vaguely know…Maybe not.
One Special Edition isn’t enough for Final Fantasy XIII-2
23 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment
in News, Opinion Tags: Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIII-2, Game, Gaming, News
I’ll admit that I’ve yet to play Final Fantasy XIII, so I don’t know if there is something really amazing to it that I’ve just not experienced but I’ve not seen or heard anything about it that’s made me really excited. So, when I heard that it was just one title in a planned compilation I was a little annoyed. Sure, make plans for sequels and spin-offs when making a game but it smacked a little of counting their eggs before they hatched to me.
Still, Squeenix are Squeenix and they can do whatever they want with their games, so long as Vaan either doesn’t appear or can be brutally murdered by much better characters like Kain or Laguna.
Apparently the designers over at Squeenix have a metaphorical hard-on for the character of Lightning. A combination of the game’s sales and developer’s wishes lead to the green-lighting of a sequel to Final Fantasy XIII-2. My only experience with the character was in Dissidia Duodecim: Final Fantasy, where she seemed like a fairly generic ‘tough girl’, and essentially a meaner version of Squall Leonhart. I don’t know why she’s like that, but it definitely didn’t sell me on her.
As you can probably gather from above, I’m not super excited about the sequel. But hey, it’s their franchise, their money and people want this game enough. I’ve seen worse games made with less justification.
What has annoyed me is their plans for the Special Editions. Now, these were announced for the Nordic Countries, the EU and Australia, but that doesn’t preclude their release in other territories.
First up is a Limited Collector’s Edition at £60. That’s fine. Lots of games do that. Final Fantasy has definitely earned the right to have an extravagant Special Edition. It’s got a Soundtrack CD of selected tracks, an artbook, six collectible postcards and a high quality art print of Lightning. Fairly cool.
But then, for another £20, for a grand total of £80, you can order the Crystal Edition with the complete four disc soundtrack (replacing the selected track CD) and an exclusive t-shirt to go with the other stuff. Add in the pre-order bonuses from different places (Serrah and Noel getting different costumes, a recruitable monster and and a novella bridging the gap between the two games), and the list of stuff is pretty damn high.
First of all, I question if all this is really necessary, how many units of these do they expect to ship? Sure, it’s quite well priced for what it’s offering, but are there people out there who care that much? That’s not rhetorical, I actually don’t know if this is an experience that merits all that.
But that preorder content that you can only get one of? Well, in the Nordic Countries, there’s a special Nordic edition that gets all the preorder content as standard. Huh. Seems that nowhere in the world can you get all this content for one version of the game.
That bugs me about stuff like this, If you’re expecting someone to want to preorder for special content and buy a collector’s edition, surely they’ll buy everything that’s on offer. Why is this sort of stuff almost never made available in a complete form?
UPDATED: Phoenix Wright’s Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 Costumes Now with DLC
20 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment
in News Tags: Ace Attorney, Capcom, Costume, Game, Marvel, Video Game
Man I am so psyched to play as the most badass lawyer of them all in UMvC3. If only there was another layer of reference to his home series I could get uber-nerdy about. Oh wait, they announced his alternative outfits!
Here’s his Primary outfit. Nothing too exciting, it’s him and Maya in their everyday duds. Not terribly exciting, it was pretty much a given but…
Here Phoenix and Maya take on the colours of Miles Edgeworth, Phoenix’s prosecutor rival and Mia Fey, Maya’s older sister and Phoenix’s mentor, respectively. That’s cool, honouring two such important characters in that way. It’s cool, if a little predictable. It’d be fun if there was something quirky next.
Alright! Phoenix is now dressed up in duds designed to emulate the lovably incompetent Detective Dick Gumshoe and Maya’s dyed her hair blue to better look like Edgeworth’s adoptive sister Franziska von Karma. Y’know, I was hoping Ms. von Karma would show up in the flesh. Then again, maybe i just have a weakness for whip-wielding 19 year old German girls.
OK. I did not expect this. Phoenix is dressed up like his slacker, womanising friend Larry Butz while Maya is wearing something reminiscent of the Tres Bien restaurant uniform both she and perpetually unlucky Maggey Byrde wore. It’s weird, but heck, it embraces the strangeness that’s been integral to Wright’s design.
OK, glad as I am that these two are represented with these outfits, they’re a bit of an odd pairing. Phoenix is wearing the colours of the mysterious, coffee guzzling Godot from game three and Maya’s dressed as what is basically a copy of her (but a good one, so all’s forgiven) from game five, Kay Faraday. Whatever, the costumes don’t have to make sense. Ooh, wouldn’t it be great if Phoenix could get a special coffee mug evidence piece while dressed as Godot? Or throw a cup instead of documents? C’mon Capcom, you know you want to.
You know, fun as these costumes are I’ve yet to see one that’s really excited-WHAT THE HOLY HELL IS THIS THEY HAVE GHOST TRICK COSTUMES!? SWEET JESUS I LOVE THAT GAME THIS IS AWESOME THIS IS AWESOME THISISAWESOME!
*ahem* Yes. These are costumes based on the appearances of Sissel and Detective Lynne from the game Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective from the studio that gave us Ace Attorney. It’s just a shame that Missile (that little doggy that helps out Phoenix in this game) doesn’t look like Missile from Ghost Trick.
Wright’s DLC costume is his young Phoenix outfit that he wore in college, as seen in Trials and Tribulations Case 1. Maya on the other hand, is dressed up like Iris from the same game. Which, if you’ve played the game, makes absolute perfect sense. And if you haven’t, well…go buy it.
Oh, if only there was different OBJECTION! music tracks that played for each different costume. There are a few more I’d like though, like an Apollo Justice and Trucy Wright set, or a Steel Samurai and Pink Princess combo. In fact, can we just have an Ace Attorney beat ‘em up? Or how about Ace Attorney Investigations 2 and Professor Layton vs Ace Attorney?
Thought I’d let that go? Not a chance.
I’m really looking forward to playing as Wright. His design, both visually and in terms of gameplay looks to be a fair distance from perfect, but it does a great job of capturing the spirit of the character and his home series.
Should I Buy? – Persona 4
12 Oct 2011 1 Comment
in Review Tags: Atlus, Game, MegaTen, Playstation, Review, RPG, Sony
Absolutely. Do it yesterday. Better yet, do it a month ago so we can talk about it now. Still need convincing? Alright, here goes.
Persona 4 is a JPRG that’s technically part of the MegaTen franchise, which is a huge deal in Japan but kinda only has a cult following here. Europe got Persona 4 in 2009, but the rest of the world got it at varying times in 2008. The developer in question is Atlus. For those of you who don’t know of them, Atlus are famous for making really difficult games. For example, a boss that can hit every party member every turn for their precise weakness, bypass your physical defense and has a resistance to every single element is only really a mild threat compared to what else is out there.
Yeah. Still, this game’s Beginner Mode is a lot more forgiving than your regular Atlus game, if only because it seems to have stopped the AI from using strategies that would murder you every turn.
The game is about you moving to the small Japanese town of Inaba for a year and the people you meet. Except it’s not, because you get involved in a supernatural murder-mystery case. Except that’s not it either, because this game’s actually about the truth. There’s a constant undercurrent to every encounter you have that nudges the characters towards facing and accepting their own repressed negative feelings and dealing with them to become a better person.
It manages this because I wasn’t entirely truthful about the genre classification. Yes, this is a meaty and challenging JRPG, but it’s also a social simulator. As a High School student the time you don’t spend saving the world is spent attending clubs, doing part-time jobs and working up the courage to ask girls out. Literally. And somehow, it pulls it off. Though you may not like a character at first, chances are that by pursuing their Social Link you’ll grow invested in their story.
There’s a real incentive to do so, even if you’re some heartless bastard that doesn’t give a damn about Kanji-kun or Nanako-chan. That’s another thing, this game is unapologetically Japanese. It throws around the honorifics without ever explaining them and you’ll be quizzed on how to make dishes like sushi.
Anyway, the battle gimmick is that each character gains a ‘Persona’, a magic creature that gives them special skills. The protagonist is a ‘wild card’, who can wield the power of many different Persona and fuse them together to form new, more powerful ones. For each rank in the corresponding Social Link you’ve established with the characters, you get bonus experience for the new Personas you create, which can save hours of grinding for cool abilities.
Battles rely around you finding the weaknesses and strategies to defeat the enemies, with your allies being able to do their own thing or fight under your control. For the most part, they’ll do the right thing if left on autopilot. Even if you take control, by increasing their Social Links they’ll gain a level of autonomy, becoming able to help each other cure status effects, performing special moves and taking powerful blows for you. It’s all very gratifying to see your team come together with all this camaraderie.
Still, if a straight up RPG is what you’re looking for, this isn’t your ideal game. The dungeons, for all the interesting symbolical representations of a characters personalities and randomly-generated maps that mean it’s never the same twice are few and far between. You’ll often spend in-game weeks running around doing unrelated stuff. Luckily, there’s enough scripted events and general activities to make sure this doesn’t get too bad.
If you’re wondering just how far a game can push a single theme, you’d be surprised. In order to find everything there is you’ll really have to work hard. Some of the Social Links are a devil to start, let alone finish and you need absolute perfect actions throughout game year to get them all up to maximum. And the advanced Fusions you can perform require very specific Personas that are a nightmare to assemble without some kind of detailed list of locations and Fusion outcomes.
Another major point in the game’s favour is that it keeps its perspective firmly grounded in the mindset of the teenagers we follow. There’s a lot of tantalising hints at budding romances between just about everyone, and things like midterms carry some fairly serious weight to them. The unfolding plot isn’t told from an omniscient point of view, always giving us the relevant facts like a lot of games, but in the insular bubble of knowledge the characters have. It’s hard to explain, but you’ll understand after you’ve spent some time with it.
Ultimately, you’ll get out of Persona 4 what you put into it. If you just try to potter through on
Beginner and see what all the fuss is about, you’ll have a good time. If you invest heavily in the characters, you’ll be rewarded with appropriate and meaningful resolutions. And if you pump it up to Expert you’ll see the Game Over Screen so much it’ll become almost welcoming.
But the best way to play it is to remember that you’re always searching for the truth. If a character is looking to you for advice, that’s what you’ve got to push them towards. If there’s an easy way out, you should ignore it. If there’s still mysteries left unsolved, you’ve got to keep looking for answers.
This is one of the best JRPGs I’ve played. And I’ve played a fair amount of them. It’s seriously worth your time, just try to forgive the fact that the opening cutscenes last for several hours. Hey, if people can forgive Metal Gear Solid for it, they can forgive Persona 4 too.
Hiatus
07 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment
Sorry all one person who cares (Hi Mitch!) but between a Persona 4 addiction, a bunch of games to work through before I can review them and a great big steaming pile of assignments to get done, I’m going on an indefinite hiatus. I’ll still post stuff from time to time, but I won’t be keeping to a regular schedule.
Should I Buy? – LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga
06 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment
in Review Tags: Game, LEGO, Microsoft, Multiplayer, Nintendo, PC, Playstation, Review, Sony, Steam, Valve
Who doesn’t love LEGO or Star Wars? If you don’t, you might not be human. Not judging. Just saying. When I first heard the news about the first game being in development, I was really excited. The Complete Saga is actually two games stitched together into one, one based on the Prequel Trilogy and the second based on the Original Trilogy.
Thankfully, these interpretations of the Prequels are much more fun to sit through than the films. For those of you without a soul and ergo have not played the LEGO games yet, you (and a friend if you wish) control little LEGO versions of the characters as you play through the events of the films with all that plot and dialogue removed and replaced with funny cutscenes and puzzles.
And it’s really fun. It’s got a tangible affection for the source material and a light, breezy style. See, each character has a variety of skills which have simple applications in puzzle solving. Force users can build stuff, robots can use panels, guys with blasters can shoot targets etc. The levels don’t outstay their welcome but if you want something really deep and meaty you’re better off looking elsewhere.
There’s a few kinks, the partner AI is terrible and can’t kill any enemies, blaster characters from the Prequels can’t dodge at all (and Chewie, for some reason) and there’s vehicle sections which are…well, vehicle sections.
Where a lot of the replay value for this game comes in the option to replay levels with any available characters to find more secrets or to see Yoda kick Vader’s ass. There’s also a lot of fun to be had playing with friends, and the simple gameplay means that anyone from kids to adults can enjoy it together. Seriously, if you’re looking for something you can play with a young child like a daughter or a nephew or a little sibling for some ‘quality bonding time’, the LEGO games are great. And it means you don’t have to fall off Rainbow Road all the time.
So yeah, it’s fun, colourful, charming, family friendly and great for pick up and play sessions. Seriously consider investing in this. Just don’t get the one based on the Clone Wars TV series. That’s supposed to be terrible.
Price: (CEX) £15 – PS3
(CEX) £20 – XBOX 360
(CEX) £15 – Nintendo Wii
(Steam) £14.99 – PC
Should I Buy? – Poker Night at the Inventory
04 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment
in Review Tags: Digital Distribution, Game, Microsoft, PC, Penny Arcade, Review, Steam, Valve
Do you like Texas Hold ‘Em but don’t get enough chances to play it in your everyday life? Do you like internet humour? Well then Poker Night at the Inventory is for you. This is literally Texas Hold ‘Em with a bunch of internet characters as the players.
You’ve got Tycho from Penny Arcade, Max from Sam and Max, Strongbad fromHomestar Runner and The Heavy from Team Fortress 2. How many of those guys you’re familiar with can be used as a litmus test for whether or not you spend too much time on the internet.
The main draw is being able to play Poker while listening to the interactions of the comically sociopathic players seated with you. The conversations are characterful and amusing, but there’s a fairly limited amount of them. After a dozen games or so, you’ll have heard every line the game has to offer twice at the very least.
It’s not too bad, but certainly noticeable. As for the rest of it, you get varying difficulty levels and every player has tells that you have to learn to read. The only problem is that Max and Strongbad aren’t exactly recognisably human, so it’s a lot harder to read them.
Occasionally you’ll get the opportunity to win an item from one of the other contestants that yo ucan then put to use in Team Fortress 2. It’s a clever incentive but I don’t really play Team Fortress 2 so I can’t tell you if they’re worth it.
I suppose I should also mention that there’s different table designs and decks to unlock as well, but that’s hardly important. I’m no expert of Poker sims, but this one is perfectly serviceable with some good humour added in but sadly lacking in multiplayer.
Price: (Steam) £3.25
