Well, I decided that since I have to put the Final Mix campaign on hold for a little while, I'd take a break from rambling about slightly stale games to rambling about one that's old enough to drive.
Final Fantasy Tactics, that whackadoo game with weird translations, a gazillion ways to break the game (two gazillion with glitches) and a passive-aggressive grudge against chocobos.
Yes, I've beaten it. Yes, I got Cloud and opened up the Lighthouse (didn't beat the Lighthouse, though). And I found a way to beat Wiegraf without redonkulous setups or grinding (Protip: The Lancer sucks in group battles, but rules against Big Bad Bosses). So there!
Its still awesome. Square knew what it was doing when it snapped up Matsuno and friends to give a new spin on Final Fantasy, and it shows. Even now, there's something special about assembling a pack of generic types and tuning them into proper agents of the Harvest. You take them a-questing, make them smack the forces of badness and banditry and unlock all the abilities so you can make them into classes that smack them even harder, and then go and burninate the remains with all sorts of flashy doom.
That's really what SRPGs were lacking up to FFT, and didn't really get again until Disgaea. There's this whole layer of spectacle that actually helps keeps things fresh and interesting. A great deal of the cool-looking spells and abilities are impractical, but damn if they don't look cool, and sometimes the difficulty just adds spice to when you pull off that Fire 4 spell or manage to make the Cyclops summon actually hit things. A nice bonus was when the user belted out a line or two, like they're actually invoking things and not just doing glorified jumping jacks.
The story is overall pretty good, but gets bogged down in increasing layers of plot, then bombarded with increasingly bad and bizarre translation problems. The PSP remake supposedly fixed all that, but I don't own one so I might never know for sure. I can tell you that there were lots of grimdark political machinations (including an engineered succession crisis) by various self-important blueblood jerkwads, that wound up being manipulated by the local church (video games hate organized religion), and that was in turn being controlled by a pack of demons trying to resurrect their leader and other evil things. It's convoluted and fairly abstruse, but understandable if you beat at things and read all the little tidbits.
There is a faction within the fandom that feels the whole Lucavi (big nasty demons o' doom) concept was just tacked on to Matsuno's political grimfest, and while I understand how they feel, the signs actually point to the Lucavi being part of the story from the get-go. Personally, I feel that they should have been more subtle about how they were handled (imagine something more like multiple copies of the One Ring floating around and corrupting folk) then just big nasty generic freaks with just enough taste for the Byzantine, but really still have all the subtlety and stealth of a chainsaw to the face when the chips are down.
One last point, since this is already to damn wordy. Why the hell did they go out of their way to make chocobo riding suck from a mechanics standpoint. It would have worked out better to not have them included at all outside of cutscenes and background fluff. Wark!
Thursday, June 30, 2016
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
Smash Evil and Save Puppies
Well, after dealing with the lamest case of food poisoning ever (or a bizarre allergic reaction, I'm not sure), I managed to do a little more Kingdom Hearts.
There's just so much stuff here that I should either loathe or be too mature to even take seriously. The platforming is crap, the worlds are somehow shallow and confusing at the same time, the Gummi Ship shmup levels drive me crazy. There's characters running around from movies and games I haven't been able to look at with a straight face for a decade (or two). Pretty much every RPG cliché ever is cropping up, along with high-fructose Disney clichés. I might have taken this thing and tossed in a woodchipper while "Shot In The Dark" is blaring and so forth if I didn't know better.
But let's face it: This shit is awesome! You're tearing around the multiverse, wrecking the mindless hordes of badness, stopping along the way to smack the shit out of random cartoon villains and do various little tasks like make friends and rescue puppies. There's just something about come back to Traverse Town and hanging out with various badasses and then touring a house full of tiny Dalmatians just tearing about and being adorable. Then you can venture forth and watch Donald damn Duck unleash hell and gorram Goofy shield bash the shit out of evil, all while you unleash the Harvest upon random abominations and make them drop all sorts of shinies.
You can just tell that this was when Squeenix was bringing their A-game (none of that fal'Cie horseshit or Final Corridor XIII blandness). I just hope that I'm actually enjoying things later and not just experiencing a game though a fever filter. The Harvest Continues!
There's just so much stuff here that I should either loathe or be too mature to even take seriously. The platforming is crap, the worlds are somehow shallow and confusing at the same time, the Gummi Ship shmup levels drive me crazy. There's characters running around from movies and games I haven't been able to look at with a straight face for a decade (or two). Pretty much every RPG cliché ever is cropping up, along with high-fructose Disney clichés. I might have taken this thing and tossed in a woodchipper while "Shot In The Dark" is blaring and so forth if I didn't know better.
But let's face it: This shit is awesome! You're tearing around the multiverse, wrecking the mindless hordes of badness, stopping along the way to smack the shit out of random cartoon villains and do various little tasks like make friends and rescue puppies. There's just something about come back to Traverse Town and hanging out with various badasses and then touring a house full of tiny Dalmatians just tearing about and being adorable. Then you can venture forth and watch Donald damn Duck unleash hell and gorram Goofy shield bash the shit out of evil, all while you unleash the Harvest upon random abominations and make them drop all sorts of shinies.
You can just tell that this was when Squeenix was bringing their A-game (none of that fal'Cie horseshit or Final Corridor XIII blandness). I just hope that I'm actually enjoying things later and not just experiencing a game though a fever filter. The Harvest Continues!
Friday, June 24, 2016
Storming The Night's Castle
What a difference a couple of days and a different controller can make. After a bit of going back into my work routine (and just plain vacillating), I went ahead and popped Castlevania: Lament of Innocence back in and started hunting the night again.
This time, it was awesome. Once I actually began to get the hang of the platforming, I started to get that feel of badass that a good action game is supposed to give. I'm still not happy about the camera, but it does a lot better than some of the other 3D games I've been exposed to. The enemies are actually fairly flavorful, and just challenging enough to get things pumping and make you use the resources at your command.
One of the nice things that they came up with for this game is actual progression for your subweapons, and it's works out so well that it could make earlier games in the series feel a bit lacking. It also helps give you a sense of growth, going from a simple (simply badass) ex-crusader to a whirlwind of doom upon the wicked, fielding powers and moves worthy of a progenitor of a whole family of vampire hunters.
The castle is also plenty spooky, as tradition demands, with lots of little details and just enough weirdness to keep you on your toes. A good example is the thunderstorm brewing in and around a turret in an area otherwise in moonlit calm. While it does have some explanation (a thunder-elemental calls that turret home), its off-putting enough to remind you that you ain't in Kansas anymore.
It's interesting to note that while the experience system started by Symphony of the Night was dropped, they still kept the shop and random drop systems in place, allowing for one to get that special feeling when a particularly rare bit of loot or big sack of money appears. I wonder where all that cash lying around came from. Is Walter taking all the equipment and supplies other adventurers brought and quietly pawning it off (to the local shopkeeper or some semi-legal front that helps with more mundane needs) or has he found some other method to gather such a hoard? He clearly has some way of exerting his power away from his castle grounds.
Oh well, beloved of the night or not, the Harvest has come for him and his, and shall not rest any more here than in any other place.
This time, it was awesome. Once I actually began to get the hang of the platforming, I started to get that feel of badass that a good action game is supposed to give. I'm still not happy about the camera, but it does a lot better than some of the other 3D games I've been exposed to. The enemies are actually fairly flavorful, and just challenging enough to get things pumping and make you use the resources at your command.
One of the nice things that they came up with for this game is actual progression for your subweapons, and it's works out so well that it could make earlier games in the series feel a bit lacking. It also helps give you a sense of growth, going from a simple (simply badass) ex-crusader to a whirlwind of doom upon the wicked, fielding powers and moves worthy of a progenitor of a whole family of vampire hunters.
The castle is also plenty spooky, as tradition demands, with lots of little details and just enough weirdness to keep you on your toes. A good example is the thunderstorm brewing in and around a turret in an area otherwise in moonlit calm. While it does have some explanation (a thunder-elemental calls that turret home), its off-putting enough to remind you that you ain't in Kansas anymore.
It's interesting to note that while the experience system started by Symphony of the Night was dropped, they still kept the shop and random drop systems in place, allowing for one to get that special feeling when a particularly rare bit of loot or big sack of money appears. I wonder where all that cash lying around came from. Is Walter taking all the equipment and supplies other adventurers brought and quietly pawning it off (to the local shopkeeper or some semi-legal front that helps with more mundane needs) or has he found some other method to gather such a hoard? He clearly has some way of exerting his power away from his castle grounds.
Oh well, beloved of the night or not, the Harvest has come for him and his, and shall not rest any more here than in any other place.
Tuesday, June 21, 2016
Smashing Evil With A Key
Well.
I'm not going to mince words; Atelier Iris 1 finally gave out and wound up a disappointment. Then I wound up with a double whammy when my newly-arrived copy of Castlevania: Lament of Innocence proved to have some really frustrating platforming mechanics...right out of the gate. I got pretty damned upset; I can't recall when I had something in my nerd life go that south that quickly.
But all was not lost! After some dithering, I pulled out something I should have a long time ago: Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Final Mix. Holy crap, I was impressed.
It's a strange thing. I wound up with a copy of the original Playstation 2 version way back when, played it for all of two hours, and put it back into the stack. I don't really remember why, either. The whole Disney/Square thing didn't turn me off or anything. Maybe it just too damned weird or something for me back then. Then a wild Playstation 3 appeared, and along with it came both KH Final Mix compilations.
And like an ass, I ignored the games I was gifted and wound up buying Amalur. You can see how that ended in earlier posts; repensem canicula est. One thing led to another, and now here I am, doing what I should damned well have to begin with (nerds have nerdy life lessons, I suppose) and popping in one of my gifts.
It was a wonder to behold. There I was, doing what should have been crappy early-game fetch quests and screwing up mini-games left and right, and enjoying every last second of it. I got stomped by Riku McAngst and laughed. I watched Black Mage Donald Duck give Guardsman Goofy a good jolt and laughed more. I even got a few giggles out of the subtle references to Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Cross (hell, I didn't know Squeenix was willing to acknowledge Chrono Cross).
Does anybody else remember when us gamers thought it was all a sick joke? When we thought that this whole crossover thing was going to be total crap and ruin Final Fantast forever? When we were all hoping it was just going to be a failed experiment and join the scrap heap with other bullshit marketing ideas? The joke was on us, and damn if isn't funny.
Granted, the storyline as it stands now is a trainwreck, and (before the Final Mix compilations) having to play random handheld episodes to get the whole story only makes sense in a evil corporation sort of way. But here I am, ready to fight the tides of evil and see where this goes.
All Hail Galactimouse and his herald, the Imperial Death Star!
I'm not going to mince words; Atelier Iris 1 finally gave out and wound up a disappointment. Then I wound up with a double whammy when my newly-arrived copy of Castlevania: Lament of Innocence proved to have some really frustrating platforming mechanics...right out of the gate. I got pretty damned upset; I can't recall when I had something in my nerd life go that south that quickly.
But all was not lost! After some dithering, I pulled out something I should have a long time ago: Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Final Mix. Holy crap, I was impressed.
It's a strange thing. I wound up with a copy of the original Playstation 2 version way back when, played it for all of two hours, and put it back into the stack. I don't really remember why, either. The whole Disney/Square thing didn't turn me off or anything. Maybe it just too damned weird or something for me back then. Then a wild Playstation 3 appeared, and along with it came both KH Final Mix compilations.
And like an ass, I ignored the games I was gifted and wound up buying Amalur. You can see how that ended in earlier posts; repensem canicula est. One thing led to another, and now here I am, doing what I should damned well have to begin with (nerds have nerdy life lessons, I suppose) and popping in one of my gifts.
It was a wonder to behold. There I was, doing what should have been crappy early-game fetch quests and screwing up mini-games left and right, and enjoying every last second of it. I got stomped by Riku McAngst and laughed. I watched Black Mage Donald Duck give Guardsman Goofy a good jolt and laughed more. I even got a few giggles out of the subtle references to Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Cross (hell, I didn't know Squeenix was willing to acknowledge Chrono Cross).
Does anybody else remember when us gamers thought it was all a sick joke? When we thought that this whole crossover thing was going to be total crap and ruin Final Fantast forever? When we were all hoping it was just going to be a failed experiment and join the scrap heap with other bullshit marketing ideas? The joke was on us, and damn if isn't funny.
Granted, the storyline as it stands now is a trainwreck, and (before the Final Mix compilations) having to play random handheld episodes to get the whole story only makes sense in a evil corporation sort of way. But here I am, ready to fight the tides of evil and see where this goes.
All Hail Galactimouse and his herald, the Imperial Death Star!
Thursday, June 16, 2016
Lightly Sauteed in 10W30
Seriously, some of the recipes in Atelier Iris are just plain weird. Before you say anything, I'm not talking about things to make magic bombs or crystallized tears of the dead or stuff like that.
I'm talking about this game's cooking recipes. Most of them follow a semblance of logic and good taste (aside from rice-heavy dishes in a game that doesn't seem to have rice), but then you get things like Charred Fungo. It's literally mushrooms fried in machine oil, and this games machine oil is clearly a petroleum analogue. It's all black and nasty looking, and the final result makes the mushrooms deep friggin' blue. I don't know about you, I'm not going anywhere near mushies that have been cooked in Quaker State and possibly gun-blued.
On the other hand, most everything has some sort of actual culinary appeal, especially in-game (to be fair the characters think the blue shrooms of doom stuff is gross too) and serves some purpose. There are even somewhat hilarious concepts, like a cocktail made with freaky magical fruit that restores health and mana, or a dish so spicy that using it in combat leaves you unable to act. I wonder what magically-infused scotch bonnets would do to people in this universe.
There there's the magic tools/bombs shop. You wind up with all sorts of crazy consumables and random materials (and swimsuits for some reason), including items whose primary purpose is currency at a special store that sells extra shiny materials to feed your crafting madness.
This game (along with Atelier in general) just has this overall feel of whimsy and wackiness, and its really a shame that it really didn't get much attention outside of the hardcore RPG crowd. I personally blame the crappy dungeon designs and distinct lack of Flashbang Poe.
I'm talking about this game's cooking recipes. Most of them follow a semblance of logic and good taste (aside from rice-heavy dishes in a game that doesn't seem to have rice), but then you get things like Charred Fungo. It's literally mushrooms fried in machine oil, and this games machine oil is clearly a petroleum analogue. It's all black and nasty looking, and the final result makes the mushrooms deep friggin' blue. I don't know about you, I'm not going anywhere near mushies that have been cooked in Quaker State and possibly gun-blued.
On the other hand, most everything has some sort of actual culinary appeal, especially in-game (to be fair the characters think the blue shrooms of doom stuff is gross too) and serves some purpose. There are even somewhat hilarious concepts, like a cocktail made with freaky magical fruit that restores health and mana, or a dish so spicy that using it in combat leaves you unable to act. I wonder what magically-infused scotch bonnets would do to people in this universe.
There there's the magic tools/bombs shop. You wind up with all sorts of crazy consumables and random materials (and swimsuits for some reason), including items whose primary purpose is currency at a special store that sells extra shiny materials to feed your crafting madness.
This game (along with Atelier in general) just has this overall feel of whimsy and wackiness, and its really a shame that it really didn't get much attention outside of the hardcore RPG crowd. I personally blame the crappy dungeon designs and distinct lack of Flashbang Poe.
Monday, June 13, 2016
What Iris 1 Does Right
Okay, now that I got some of my frustrations aired out in my last post, I can talk about some of the good things going on in Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana.
The item variety is simply staggering. Few games have come close to the amount of different goodies that you can make or find here (not accounting for things like procedurally-created stuff i.e. Borderlands or Diablo). There were some missteps, but Gust wanted to make a 'traditional' RPG with their signature crafting and material hunting, and it works out pretty damned well. Even the 'trash' items actually have value for things like mass-production and mana extraction (Iris 2 really could've used that last part). The in-game economy is not nice, but it gives you an incentive to actually farm and craft and recycle your inventory.
And to top it all off, all these things wind up having some point in the end. Somebody at Gust was feeling mean when they worked out the combat system, then they compensated by adding in all sorts of curatives and useful offensive items. Then they upped the ante by giving you both direct creation of items via magical elements, and a second system that's much more in line with Atelier's "shop of wonders" tradition. I can see why the hardcore Atelier fans prefer this to 2. I don't completely agree with their opinion, but it's quite understandable.
Another nice touch is the Mana Love/Energy system. Simply put, you find and recruit elemental spirits (much like say, the World of Mana series) and using their powers drains from a finite pool, which is improved and replenish by giving them items. There's all sorts of variables, but it's fairly simple to find an item that a particular Mana really likes (though not always easy to hand over in quantity) so that you can get the most distance from your loot pile.
There's more to tell, but I'm actually a bit too spazzed to keep writing. Hopefully I'll get to expound and elucidate further soon. The Harvest Never Rests!
The item variety is simply staggering. Few games have come close to the amount of different goodies that you can make or find here (not accounting for things like procedurally-created stuff i.e. Borderlands or Diablo). There were some missteps, but Gust wanted to make a 'traditional' RPG with their signature crafting and material hunting, and it works out pretty damned well. Even the 'trash' items actually have value for things like mass-production and mana extraction (Iris 2 really could've used that last part). The in-game economy is not nice, but it gives you an incentive to actually farm and craft and recycle your inventory.
And to top it all off, all these things wind up having some point in the end. Somebody at Gust was feeling mean when they worked out the combat system, then they compensated by adding in all sorts of curatives and useful offensive items. Then they upped the ante by giving you both direct creation of items via magical elements, and a second system that's much more in line with Atelier's "shop of wonders" tradition. I can see why the hardcore Atelier fans prefer this to 2. I don't completely agree with their opinion, but it's quite understandable.
Another nice touch is the Mana Love/Energy system. Simply put, you find and recruit elemental spirits (much like say, the World of Mana series) and using their powers drains from a finite pool, which is improved and replenish by giving them items. There's all sorts of variables, but it's fairly simple to find an item that a particular Mana really likes (though not always easy to hand over in quantity) so that you can get the most distance from your loot pile.
There's more to tell, but I'm actually a bit too spazzed to keep writing. Hopefully I'll get to expound and elucidate further soon. The Harvest Never Rests!
Friday, June 10, 2016
Getting It Out Of My System
Yeesh. Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana is no joke, I can tell you that. The battles are overall a great deal more difficult than Iris 2.
A lot of it comes from a combination of having much harder monsters (especially in offensive stats and variety of special moves) combined with a party that just doesn't hit very hard, even with optimized gear. It gets better later on, but not all that much.
It tries to charm you with having loads and loads of all sorts of consumables for you to find and make, then you realize the awful truth: nine of each item, maximum. You had better be crafting several different curatives, or you stand a good chance of being stuck without a lot of resources very quickly.
The crafting system is overall fairly satisfying, with shop synthesis (where the meat is, both literally and figuratively) giving you fairly complex recipes early, allowing you to make all sorts of goodies from food to potions to bombs and more. The actual alchemy system is fairly workable as well, with the added advantage of whipping up items on the fly, including in battle. Unfortunately, both are really handicapped by the item cap. Smart play can feel counterproductive, resulting in having a constant glut of alchemy elements and basic materials, with even more being left on the field unused.
The developers included a couple of interesting ideas to compensate. The first is a gifting system, where you give items to elemental spirits to improve their energy and how they feel about you. It has some interesting quirks, and you can't give everybody the same crap and expect the same result. The second is an option to extract alchemy elements directly from items in your inventory, which was a very nifty idea, and actually gives an impression of the big cycle that alchemy is supposed to be a part of in the game world. Iris 2 really should have kept that.
Don't get me wrong; Iris 1 is a pretty good game, and I plan to finish it out, but there's so many things here that make me think that developers were trying to make a Playstation 2 game but were stubbornly holding to 16-bit sensibilities, which hampers the experience.
Oh, and this game needs 100% more Flashbang Poe!
A lot of it comes from a combination of having much harder monsters (especially in offensive stats and variety of special moves) combined with a party that just doesn't hit very hard, even with optimized gear. It gets better later on, but not all that much.
It tries to charm you with having loads and loads of all sorts of consumables for you to find and make, then you realize the awful truth: nine of each item, maximum. You had better be crafting several different curatives, or you stand a good chance of being stuck without a lot of resources very quickly.
The crafting system is overall fairly satisfying, with shop synthesis (where the meat is, both literally and figuratively) giving you fairly complex recipes early, allowing you to make all sorts of goodies from food to potions to bombs and more. The actual alchemy system is fairly workable as well, with the added advantage of whipping up items on the fly, including in battle. Unfortunately, both are really handicapped by the item cap. Smart play can feel counterproductive, resulting in having a constant glut of alchemy elements and basic materials, with even more being left on the field unused.
The developers included a couple of interesting ideas to compensate. The first is a gifting system, where you give items to elemental spirits to improve their energy and how they feel about you. It has some interesting quirks, and you can't give everybody the same crap and expect the same result. The second is an option to extract alchemy elements directly from items in your inventory, which was a very nifty idea, and actually gives an impression of the big cycle that alchemy is supposed to be a part of in the game world. Iris 2 really should have kept that.
Don't get me wrong; Iris 1 is a pretty good game, and I plan to finish it out, but there's so many things here that make me think that developers were trying to make a Playstation 2 game but were stubbornly holding to 16-bit sensibilities, which hampers the experience.
Oh, and this game needs 100% more Flashbang Poe!
Tuesday, June 7, 2016
Sweet And Sour Alchemy
After some pondering and a bit of dubious flirtation, I decided to just put Kingdoms Of Amalur down for the time being. I may or may not break down and find some DLC (if it's still available) for it later, but right now I just something a bit more flavorful.
I went ahead and popped my copy of Vagrant Story in. It's just about what I envisioned; a strange blend of Diablo and menu-driven RPG. This one is far from bad, but it seems to require focused play for longer stretches than I can manage at the moment; real life keeps interrupting me, to the point where I was making very obvious noob mistakes. After some agonizing over dropping what could be a very rewarding campaign, I pulled it back out and put it on hold until I'm in the mood for another 'dark' game.
Then came a bizarre combination of depression and gamer's block. Honestly (and in danger of sounding like a boastful ass), my list of on-hand, unplayed games has reached critical mass; it took something akin to a will save to go ahead and pull another one out.
I think I picked the next outing very well. This time it's Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana. Just watching the damn intro movie managed to bring a smile to my face. Like pretty much all Atelier games, the whole point of the gameplay is to tear around and collect materials to make into all sorts of goodies. There's a whole lot of traditional RPG plot and gameplay elements (much to the chagrin of hardcore Atelier fans I'm told), which thus far gives a fair bit of flavor to unleashing the Harvest upon the oppositional hordes.
There's a special nerdy joy to be found in tearing about the countryside and grabbing the absolutely absurd amount and variety of things you can use. Throw in some of the nicest backgrounds (especially the towns and more flavorful dungeons) and some of the most cartoonish mooks this side of World of Mana, and we've got a real winner here. Oh, and barrels actually hold stuff for you to use. Can't think of another game that gave me gears and giant logs from searching barrels so far.
Anyway, the hours grows late and it's time to get back into the real world. The Harvest Never Rests!
I went ahead and popped my copy of Vagrant Story in. It's just about what I envisioned; a strange blend of Diablo and menu-driven RPG. This one is far from bad, but it seems to require focused play for longer stretches than I can manage at the moment; real life keeps interrupting me, to the point where I was making very obvious noob mistakes. After some agonizing over dropping what could be a very rewarding campaign, I pulled it back out and put it on hold until I'm in the mood for another 'dark' game.
Then came a bizarre combination of depression and gamer's block. Honestly (and in danger of sounding like a boastful ass), my list of on-hand, unplayed games has reached critical mass; it took something akin to a will save to go ahead and pull another one out.
I think I picked the next outing very well. This time it's Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana. Just watching the damn intro movie managed to bring a smile to my face. Like pretty much all Atelier games, the whole point of the gameplay is to tear around and collect materials to make into all sorts of goodies. There's a whole lot of traditional RPG plot and gameplay elements (much to the chagrin of hardcore Atelier fans I'm told), which thus far gives a fair bit of flavor to unleashing the Harvest upon the oppositional hordes.
There's a special nerdy joy to be found in tearing about the countryside and grabbing the absolutely absurd amount and variety of things you can use. Throw in some of the nicest backgrounds (especially the towns and more flavorful dungeons) and some of the most cartoonish mooks this side of World of Mana, and we've got a real winner here. Oh, and barrels actually hold stuff for you to use. Can't think of another game that gave me gears and giant logs from searching barrels so far.
Anyway, the hours grows late and it's time to get back into the real world. The Harvest Never Rests!
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