Ephemeral Fantasia Review

Continuing with our month of pre-Final Fantasy X Playstation 2 games, I’m going to talk about one that was not quite so good as one might hope. It was originally slated for Dreamcast, but got a port to the Playstation 2. Now, just because it was going from a system with less impressive statistics to one that was more solidly established, that doesn’t mean it would be a bad game. If you ignore graphics, like I usually do, it’s quite possible that great battle systems and stories can make such a game really great, even though it might not stand up to contemporaneous games. No, there’s a very good reason why Ephemeral Fantasia is a sub-par game.

The opening of the game follows our silent protagonist, Mouse, as he lands on the island nation of Pandule. Apparently, he’s there to perform at the princess’s wedding. His talking guitar-thing, Pattimo, reveals that the two usually engage in theft as well as performance. He’s met by female stri- oh, wait, that’s the female guards uniform? Ooookay… well, there’s a pervert somewhere in that outfit’s past. Well, whatever. You meet the princess, she’s all melancholy and doesn’t want to marry the guy, who totally can’t be a villain. No one with long silver hair is ever a villain in an RPG. Nope. So, you decide to save the chick, and then Sephiroth-wannabe freezes your behind in place, and when you wake up, you’re coming in on the boat you sailed in on. And it’s five days before the wedding, just like when you arrived. GROUNDHOGDAY! And so, you have to figure out how to make people remember previous iterations and so on. It’s not a terrible story, though it’s not very original even in the RPG world.

Well, now that we’ve got the story out of the way, let’s dive right in to where this game fails. Because of the time sensitive nature of the plot, you have a watch that ticks away the hours. An in-game hour occurs in an out-of-game minute. So, you’ll frequently have to reach spots in town or around the island in what works out to 8 minutes or less. That’s tough, but should be doable. What really makes things problematic is that the island, its main town, and all of its dungeons are set up like mazes, making it very difficult at first to figure out where you’re going. To compound this problem, you have to find pieces of the map to even be able to access a bird’s eye view of your location. So, the first several times you run around the island, you’re going to be late for everything. When the margin for being late is a matter of minutes, or rather seconds, being on time is extremely difficult. And because being on time is how you make the plot advance, things get dicey fast. The quests you have to do to change events on the island, unlock characters, and so on, are hindered by lack of hints, mediocre translation at times, and simple obscurity of what you have to do, quite apart from the necessity to be on time. And if you haven’t reach a certain point in the quest by the end of the week, all your hard work poofs with the next time reliving the week. AAAAAARGH! This is easily the worst aspect of this game, making things controller-breakingly hard in a seriously annoying way.

Now, the characters are actually decent. The royal guard Rummy, who meets you when you first get to the island, has a crush on another character, which causes her to try to murder a romantic rival, until you can stop her. Kyte, the fisherman (who wields fish as his weapon, by the way), has his tragic issues resulting from memories of his comrades who drowned during a mysterious ship wreck. There’s also the leader of the bandits, Galhint, who already knows about everything, but goes along with the script out of fear for his cohorts. Even the villains are pretty sympathetic, with the main baddy having a very legitimate reason for setting things up the way he had. Sure, there’s some characters who are a little bland, like Ano the magic scientist, who doesn’t do much. The characters who are well done, however, are pretty well done indeed. What is especially impressive is that each character has an almost entirely different combat style that makes it so no two characters use exactly the same strategies. The status effect user, who inflicts negative status effects on enemies, is useful against normal enemies, while the buffer character has some good skills for boss fights. There’s a character who has terrible physical skills, but has the best healing magics in the game. And so on. There are characters you may not like as much, but it is easily possible to use each one effectively.

Talking about the battles reminds me that the battle system is quite good. It’s a system similar to the active time battle system, where you wait for all of your characters to charge up before they can act. However, there is no simple “attack” option. Each character has physical skills that frequently deal damage, but can have other effects, like healing or stat buffs. Each of these skills has a different energy rating. The higher the energy rating, the longer it will take a character to act again in battle. And each skill levels up as you use it, which can unlock other skills, especially when the multiple skills are at certain levels. There’s also magic, which you learn at certain character levels, and cost magic points to use. You also have a party level, which dictates the max hp and mp of the characters, while character level dictates defense and attack power. There’s also an incredibly complex elemental system, but I won’t get into that too much. All you need to know is there are four elemental houses (so to speak) with three tiers. There’s an extra 13th element, which just adds to the confusion.

Replay value is another area where this game falls flat. There’s tons of characters to use, and a number of fun minigames that can only be played for a certain portion of the game, but there’s a lot of busy work involved in trekking around the island. Plus, you’ll have a lot of trouble getting through the game in the first place because of the difficulty resulting from poor design. So, I’d give this game “play it once with a walkthrough handy.” The beginning of the game is horribly difficult and annoying, but as you approach the middle and end of the game, there are some great rewards for you, in the story and the battle system. So, if you can get through the early bit without raging, the latter portion of the game is quite fun. The best way to do that is to follow a walkthrough pretty religiously.

So, yeah. This game’s one of them where the premise is pretty decent, but the execution ruins it. And really, it’s only because of one area of bad design. Still, the game’s major failing, the time based puzzles, is the focal point of the game, which means that you can’t really ignore it. So, right down to it, this game’s got a rating of about 7.2 out of 10. I enjoyed it a lot, but I referred constantly to a walkthrough, and even when I did, there were some frustrating parts. It gets as high a score as it does mostly because the battle system is really good, and the characters and story are adequate to good.

Quick Tip: Power Jump is the most useful skill in the game. It allows you to jump to any map square that you have found. You get it by having Rummy use diving kick, which she learns from using hi-kick, from hard punch. Get this skill as early as humanly possible.

How I Broke Game: I beat the final boss with Rinna and Lloyd-L. The loli with no good attacks and the princess with no good attacks or spells. To be fair, I wanted to use Rindrinna, but she froze the game every time. Probably a glitch.

If you liked this game, you should try one of the following games. The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask is the same groundhog plot device done well, with better-designed puzzles and dungeons. Final Fantasy VI has a similarly large cast of unique characters, each of whom are quite usable in their own right. Okage: Shadow King is an unexpectedly good choice for those who liked Ephemeral Fantasia, because they both have their quirkiness, and both of them have a bit more challenge than your average mainstream RPG.

Okage: Shadow King Review

 

What would happen if you got Tim Burton to make a console RPG instead of a movie? Well, it would probably suck. But, looking at the pre-Final Fantasy X PS2, there’s one game that has a similar aesthetic to some of Burton’s works, especially “The Nightmare before Christmas” and “Corpse Bride.” That game is Okage: Shadow King. This game, though not hugely popular, has quite a vibrant fan base, making this a definite cult classic. But why is that? Well, let’s dive in and find out!

The story starts you off in the role of Ari, a boy with a weak presence. After his sister gets possessed by a ghost, causing her to speak only pig latin, Ari valiantly “volunteers” to sell his soul to Evil King Stanley Hihat Trinidad the XIVth. In exchange, Stan removes the curse, leaving in its place the lesser curse of a pink shadow. From there, Stan orders Ari to help him in his quest to regain his rightful title of Evil King by defeating lesser fake evil kings, so he can once again terrorize the world. It’s not your typical jRPG plot, though it does have some classic elements, like a princess who you have to save, collecting pieces of something or other to make a greater whole, and the fact that your main character is a chosen one with extra-ordinary powers. But… well, come on! Pink shadows? Saving the world for evil? This game’s plot is, well, quirky.

Quirky is a word that describes a number of things about this game, especially the characters. There’s Rosalyn, the expert hero who, because of a run-in with Stan, wields a parasol to hide her pink shadow. Or Linda, the Teen Idol Evil King, who takes over a whole town by, using her songs to make them idolize her. Or Epros, the Phantom Evil King, who uses playing cards as weapons and always talks in rhyme. He does it all the time. That’s right, those are all playable party members. Fortunately, though each of them has significant quirks, they rarely get annoying, because this game does not take itself seriously at all. You can’t help but chuckle at the characters, because, while their facial expressions aren’t as graphically sophisticated as in, say, Final Fantasy X, they just look funny. Stan is especially over the top, with puzzled, angry, and even default facial expressions looking just like a jack-o-lantern.

Right. Enough of that, on to the battle system. While you’re walking around on the map, ghosts will appear and try to chase you. If they catch your back, you’ll be ambushed, and if you catch their back, then Stan will ask you some questions, and if you get them right, he’ll attack the enemies for you. His questions are on the order of “How would you describe the bowel shaking terror that I inspire,” which sometimes leads to hilarious responses, even when you’re actually answering correctly. You might think that you can just avoid battles period, if you’re good, but the longer you go between battles, the faster and more frequent ghosts become, so eventually you’ll get caught. When you do, the system is pretty standard. Wait your turn, enter command, added to queue. Enemies and allies can act simultaneously, so it’s a little different, but  basically, your standard active time battle system.

You’ll want to get used to the battle system, because if you don’t (and even if you do, to some degree) this game has a wonky level curve. In most RPGs, you can advance to the next area immediately after defeating the boss, with only mild difficulty. If you take the time to buy new equipment, the next area will be almost easy. In Okage, if you get all the new equipment for all of your characters after beating the boss of an area, and then venture into the next area, you’ll be annihilated within around three battles. What it all boils down to is, level grinding. Get used to it.

Replay value is a tough call. You won’t see a sequel of this game, so you might play it again to get the most out of the world that you can. Plus, there is a relationship system hidden in the game, so you can experiment at finding different ways to do things. But, then again, the large amount of grinding might put you off, especially since there is no new game plus. I’m going to have to give this one a “play it again once in a long while, but not frequently.” It’s a fun game, but its issues make it so you really only want to relive the story, not the gameplay.

Well, I guess it’s time to get down a rating. Okage is a game that drags you into the world, and makes you sad when it’s over. Since there’s no sequel, you’ll have to settle for whatever the fandom has cooked up or replay the game. Really, it’s almost enough to make you forget how much of a pain power leveling was. So, as far as numerical ratings go, this guy gets a 7.6 out of 10. Just a hair above average (remember, 5 is the baseline for an RPG for me, so it’s something like 2.6 out of 5). I really like the plot, the characters, and the art style, but the gameplay is mediocre at best. Still, it’s fun while it lasts, and part of the thrill is looking forward to the next story segment. That might just get you through the grinding.

Quick Tip: During the part of the game when random encounters don’t happen (you’ll know when that is), you should take the time to try and find all the tiny gears you can. It’s annoying, but not as annoying as searching while ghosts blow you. Woo woo.

If you liked this game, you might give one of these games a shot. Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure, has the same irreverent quality to it, and also has a pretty fun little world. Disgaea: Hour of Darkness is very much in the same vein. A tongue in cheek approach to RPG conventions, a look at the bright side of the dark side, and fun characters. Thousand Arms, again for a lot of strangeness and laughing at RPGs.

Dark Cloud Review

At the beginning of most console’s lives, it’s not entirely clear what that console is capable of. Like, how could it possibly be better than the last system? Then a new game comes out that really showcases the new capabilities, and you go “Wow.” For the Playstation 2 RPG fans, many would say Final Fantasy X is that game. They’ve got a definite point. But there were earlier RPGs on the PS2, and the one I’m going to talk about today is Dark Cloud. This action RPG looked, to some people, like “just a way to kill time until FFX came out.” I’d like to take a quick look at this early PS2 game, to see what it did in a pre-Final Fantasy X world.

Dark Cloud starts out with a cutscene showing the villain reviving the Dark Genie, who had nearly destroyed the world long ago. Cut to our main character, peacefully enjoying a village festival. The Dark Genie strikes, and the entire town and everyone in it is destroyed. Or are they? An old geezer named the fairy king tells you that they’re all just sealed in big rocks, and that you can free them and rebuild the world. The rest of the game is basically you going from town to town, meeting people as you rebuild their homes. It doesn’t seem like much of a story, until the very end of the game, when you’re treated to a kinda cool fairy tale style story. No, I won’t spoil it, just letting you know that there is a little more depth to this game.

The characters are… well, kinda bland. They get a little dialogue during the time when you meet them, and after that they’re completely undeveloped. It’s too bad, because you’d think that some of them would have the potential to be pretty interesting, like the literal cat girl, the moon rabbit mech pilot, or the genie. I guess you get a little bit of personality from their minor battle noises and their play style, but… yeah, not much going here.

The main game follows this flow. You go into a dungeon, find seal rocks (Atla) rebuild as you can, get a new party member halfway through the dungeon, all while upgrading your weaponry. The dungeon floors are randomized, meaning you could end up with the exit right in front of you. You need a key obtained by defeating one randomly selected monster though, so no luck manipulation speedruns here. The biggest issue is that you’ve got three separate gauges that you need to keep track of per character. Character HP, thirst, and weapon HP. When Character HP runs out, you’ll have to leave the dungeon or switch to a different character. When thirst runs out, you’ll start taking damage every couple of seconds. When weapon HP runs out, your weapon disappears. This is especially worrying since powering up your weapon is the main form of leveling up in this game.

Ah, yes, the weapon level up system. When you use a weapon to defeat enemies, it gains experience and eventually levels up, though you have to trigger this level gain. Each weapon can equip a certain number of “attachments” which get absorbed during a level up, permanently adding to the capabilities of the weapon. You can also “build up” weapons after meeting certain prerequisites (fire element 15, beast attack 10, magic power 7, etc.), which evolves the weapon into a stronger weapon with higher max values. Some weapons have special abilities, which you’ll want to add in to other weapons by “status breaking” a weapon and turning it into an attachment. It’s pretty well laid out, but if you want to get a really powerful weapon, you’ll have to put in a fair amount of grinding.

Combat in the dungeons is adequate. You’ll probably want to use specific characters for specific enemies, because each character has a form of attacking that help kill certain enemies but makes killing others really hard. There’s some annoyances in combat, like trying to dodge attacks and the lack of a guard mechanic. It does at least have a lock on feature, which is a good thing. All in all, it’s good enough, but not perfectly polished.

The other main aspect of the game is the town building, which works something like a puzzle, where you have to fit houses and things around the requests of the residents. This can get pretty tricky, when three houses have to be around one thing in a certain orientation. Still, a seasoned player will have these puzzles solved without undue walkthrough consultation.

And now to talk about graphics. Wait, what? No! The game has graphics, they work for what they were intended, seeing the game, and that’s all you need! It’s no Final Fantasy X, but who cares?

Would I play this game again? Well… probably not from the beginning. This game rates more like “why play it from the beginning again? Almost everything good about the game is still accessible on my old save,” on replayability. Still, you might pick it up to finish up that optional end dungeon.

Well, it’s been an interesting voyage into an early PS2 RPG. For better or for worse, a lot of RPGs take their cues from the Final Fantasy series. Dark Cloud, however, came out before Final Fantasy X, and so entered onto the PS2 with a clear field. Though it’s got some failings, it does a lot of things quite well. The final rating I’d give for this game is 8.0. It seems to be really uncomplicated until the very end, at which point the rather weak story kicks into high gear. However, the character whose psyche you get the most insight into isn’t the main character. He’s not even playable. But the weapon upgrade system is good, the dungeon crawling adequate, and the world building simple and interesting.

How I broke game: When I played this game, I got Steve and a durable weapon while going through the first dungeon. Pretty lucky, but who cares? Well, I upgraded Steve to Super Steve, and then, going through the final dungeon, got another Steve. Lol.

Quick Tip: When combining weapons with canceling abilities, the one that is already on the weapon takes precedence and remains, meaning that you need to add the good ability before you add the bad ability.

If you liked this game, you might want to look at the following games. Legend of Mana has a similar world building mechanic, a weapon-making system, and an action RPG system. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is just a great game all around, and has similar combat strategies and complex boss fights. Dark Cloud 2  is just Dark Cloud with a graphics update (big whoop), voice acting (… okay), a little more of a story, and polished mechanics.

Top 10 RPGs by Minigames

What is it that makes a great RPGs? Some would say that good story is a must. They have a good point. Some people would say that a solid battle mechanic is imperative. That’a also a good judge of an RPG. Some people might say that graphical sophistication is the hallmark of a good RPG. They’re wrong. But I think that one of the hallmarks of a fun RPG is the quality of the minigame or minigames found within the title. So this week, I’m going to do a quick special. I’m listing the top 10 best RPGs based on minigames.

Why minigames? Well, it doesn’t go back all that far. There’s only so much you can do with a snes game. In some Playstation RPGs, some extra space was available for a minigame. With the space for a minigame, came the opportunity to insert a game that, while fun, enjoyable, or addictive, would not merit its own independent release. Simply put, while one might want to play a casino game as a break from something else, most people would quickly lose interest if that was the only thing to do in a game.

What is a minigame, you ask? Well, for the purposes of this review, minigames adhere to a few principles. One is that a minigame features a different system than that found in the main game. This distinction means that some things are minigames only in certain contexts. For example, a real time strategy segment is only a minigame if the rest of the game isn’t real time strategy. Even if it’s the same genre, a different system still makes for a minigame. Like a monster breeding RPG in a standard RPG might count. Another rule of thumb is that a minigame must be repeatable, for a significant portion of the game. Something that only happens once, or you can only do until you leave a certain area for the first time, does not count as a minigame. That’s an event. Finally, a supposed minigame that is simply a way to get you used to various aspects of the controls used in the main game is really more of a training exercise. This type is common in a number of action RPGs, where you might have different rules than the normal game (limited swings, different targeting, unusual goals), but it still helps you coordinate your use of the controls.

So, without further ado, the list!

10: Any RPG with a fishing minigame as the sole minigmame. Usually these are just a little bit above a button mashing minigame, which are not included on this list because they’re hardly interesting. There’s soooo many RPGs that have a fishing minigame. I figure it’s because fishing games sell terribly on their own, so the only way to get them to sell is to bundle them with an RPG. For the sake of this list, figure that my example is Persona 4.

9: Any RPG with a standard casino game (poker, roulette, slots, blackjack) as the only minigame. Examples might include a number of the Pokémon games, but I’ll officially put Dragon Warrior VII as the example for the sake of this article. These games are fun, generally have some good in-game purpose –getting prizes— and usually are repeatable after you get to the casino. Still, they’re not very original, and there’s not much in the way of variety or exciting mechanics.

8: Breath of Fire III. This game is mainly about its fishing minigame, which deserves mention because it is a cut above most such games. In addition to detailed selection of rods and lures, fish swim around, will only go for certain lures, and fight back in various ways once hooked. This game also has a sort of town building minigame in the form of the faerie village. In the faerie village, there is a way to get a “casino.” The two games are High/Low and Number Guessing. The former is just like the boring half of a poker game where you’re allowed to double up, but the latter is essentially Mastermind, with better prizes the fewer guesses you use. One good minigame, one decent minigame, and one boring minigame put Breath of Fire III on the list, and above the generic examples to boot!

7: Final Fantasy X. Well, this game at least has a lot of minigames, so you’re likely to really enjoy one of them. I liked blitzball, but there’s also the chocobo racing game, and butterflies. Still, most of these minigames are mediocre, hence rating this game rather lower than Final Fantasy VIII, which has a very good minigame.

6: Final Fantasy VIII. Sigh. I’d really like to put this game higher, but it only has one minigame. Still, Triple Triad is an excellent minigame, with a fair amount of strategy involved, and a huge payout if you follow it religiously. There’s been some efforts made to make sure that having the best cards doesn’t automatically win you the game, which is refreshing.

5: Thousand Arms. While I’d hesitate to call the dating sim segments minigames—after all the game is supposed to be an RPG/date sim— there’s all the minigames involving the various girls. Blackjack, Super RPS (don’t ask), cooking, whack a mole, shooter, a warehouse cleaning game, something like tanagrams, and memory make an intimidatingly large list of minigames, and while none of them are groundbreaking on their own, adding them up means you’ve got a long list of adequate minigames.

4: Ephemeral Fantasia. This is one case where the minigames might actually be better than the main game. The rhythm game is pretty good, as are the drinking game and the domino game. The only problem with the rhythm game is the lack of songs. There’s only 6. Still, between the minigames, there’s a lot to like, even if the game itself is a chore to play.

3: Kingdom Hearts 2. Okay, this game has sooooo many minigames that it’s impossible that you don’t like at least one. Though it does have a lot of training style events that aren’t “true” minigames, it contains a huge number of legitimate minigames. Some of the highlights include the gummy ship segments, which received a HUGE improvement over the first game. While in the first game, you simply got from point A to point B or C with lasers blazing, in Kingdom Hearts 2, there are actually missions you can undertake, secret parts to be found, and points to be earned. The builder even got a bunch of cool parts. There’s all of the Winny the Pooh minigames, of which I personally enjoy the bouncing one most. There’s the cycle minigame in Tronland. The present game in Halloweentown, and last but… actually, probably least, the Atlantis singing game. This minigame is infamous mostly because it includes absolutely terrible songs, and mediocre voice acting. The game itself would be fairly inoffensive if it the sound were turned off, but in a rhythm game, that kind of defeats the purpose.

2: Xenosaga Epsiode I: Der Wille zur Macht. Well, this game has a large variety of minigames. The mech battle game, the drill game, the casino, and the card game. The first two are generally fairly forgettable, though they do have their fun bits. The casino is your RPG standard, more or less. But the card game is phenomenal. This is a card game that is at least as complex as the Pokémon card game, and has significant strategy involved. You can set up combos, or just pound away. The only real issue is that, once you’ve got a good deck, you’ll rarely lose against the computers, who only have one or two really good decks.

1: Final Fantasy VII. In my opinion, this is the real reason that FF7 is legitimately one of the best RPGs ever made. This game has so many minigames, it’s hard to keep track of them all. The submarine game, the snowboarding game, the rail-shooter, chocobo racing, even the somewhat lackluster minor minigames in the Gold Saucer. My only gripe is that I wish they’d let you play the rts game of defending Fort Condor again. Still, the minigames in FF7 were truly great, and make the game well worth sinking some extra hours into.

Threads of Fate

Okay, so next up on the list of games to review is… Threads of Fate! Woohoo! Wait, you’ve never heard of it? It’s also know as Dewprism. Still no? Well, I guess there’s some good reasons for that. It came out around the same time as Chrono Cross, and so it might have slipped under some people’s radars. That said, it does have its own issues. Without further ado, let’s dive into this under-appreciated action RPG.

One of the interesting features of this game is that you have two choices of main characters. Rue’s a guy on a quest to save someone very important to him, possessing bizarre shapechanging powers. Mint’s on a quest for revenge and world domination. Together, they fight crime! Both characters have some pretty interesting mechanics. Rue’s monster transformations drive his puzzling, and Mint uses magic spells to the same effect. Rue actually stands out a little as being on the boring side, compared to all the energetic characters in the game, which can be a little annoying. You kinda don’t care about Rue at all. Mint, on the other hand, is not a sympathetic character, but she’s still pretty fun in the way she acts. There’s a host of quirky characters in the background of this game, and you get to know a fair number of them pretty well, even some characters that might seem like fairly generic npcs. Overall, the characters immerse you in the game world, which is usually a plus.

The gameplay is super simple. Equipment is the only thing that increases defense and attack. Once you get the next piece, the old one is removed from your inventory. You level up the other two statistics hp and mp, by losing the relevant point. Get damaged to level up hp, use magic to level up mp. For an RPG, that’s about as simple as it gets. In a long game, that could really get annoying.

For better or for worse, Threads of Fate is not a long game. It’s really short for an RPG. Reeeeally short. I beat it twice in 18 hours, and I’m not one to speed run or skip side quests and stuff. Threads of Fate barely has any side quests, and I think a good speed runner could get through in about 4 hours, most of which would be dialogue. It’s a good thing that the game encourages you to play through twice, because otherwise this game would be too short by half. On the sliding scale from  “Do not WAAAANT!” to “The Only RPG you’ll ever need,” this guy clocks in at about “twice through, play it again for kicks, then to the dust bunnies with it.” It’s fun, even though Mint and Rue’s storylines don’t have much difference in their dungeons or anything, and the two paths together just about make up one very short RPG.

Don’t worry though. It’s also a platformer! Yay, horrible camera angles, precision jumping, and blind leaps! Seriously, I died more times my first time playing the game from missing jumps and running out of hp than from anything else. Most bosses only took one try. The platforming’s some of the toughest stuff in the game, because it’s not very polished.

Graphics? Who cares? It’s an RPG, graphics seldom make much difference there, I’m not gonna talk about it. That’s it. Game over.

My conclusion? Well, this game is not as good as some RPGs. It feels rushed, since Rue’s shapechanging mechanics are much less complicated and mostly recycle the monster specs, as compared to Mint’s magic, which has a whole system of colors and shapes. It’s almost like the developers finished Mint’s half of the game, called it good, but then realized that the game was too short, and inserted Rue’s section at the last minute. The simplicity of the RPG system attached to the game supports this reading. But, on the other hand, the well developed characters, and significant interpersonal relations argue for a well planned game, if one that was planned to have a small scope. My numerical rating for this game is 7.2. It’s pretty fun while it lasts, and you’ll want to charge right into the second playthrough, but even when you’re done with that, it leaves you wanting more, while at the same time knowing that it couldn’t deliver a better product if it did give you more of the same. It's not a great technical accomplishment, and the leveling up would get really old over a longer game, but it's just short enough a game that these technically inferior aspects don't detract too much from the game, but the game is too short, which is another problem.

Fun Fact: Ken Akamatsu was briefly engaged to do a manga adaptation of this game, which, when the game didn’t sell well, got repurposed into Negima!

Quick Tip: Don’t sell anything “Legendary.” If you give them all to the barkeep, he’ll make you power-ups, at the (relatively) low cost of around 50 of a certain monster coin.

If you liked this game, you might want to try playing one of these games. Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts 2 are very similar in their basic combat set-up, and Sora handles quite a bit like Rue. Dual Hearts has a nice, encapsulated world like in Threads of Fate, and both are action-RPGs with a fairly simple level-up process.

Battle of the Valkyries

This week we’ve got a very special double header. I’m going to do the Battle of the Valkyries, and compare Odin Sphere to Valkyrie Profile! As a result, we’re going to run a little long, so I’d like you to consider this two weeks worth of JRPG Corner. Don’t look so glum! These two are both highly rated games! Just sit back and enjoy the show. Ragnarok will be here all too soon…

Valkyrie Profile is the story about Lenneth Valkyrie, who was incarnated into the world of Midgard by All-father Odin while she was not needed in Valhalla. When the final battle approached, she died in Midgard, and ascended to Asgard, forgetful of all her time as a mortal. But what of those still alive in the realm of men who still remember the girl Platina, Lenneth’s mortal shell? I’m not going to say any more, but most of the story revolves around the various einherjär that Lenneth recruits to fight in the war with the Vanir. Treated as individual stories, some of them are pretty moving. Especially Yumei’s and Gray’s. Or at least, those are my favorites. The overarching plot is not so great, and it takes a bit of work to make it actually appear.

Odin Sphere tells the story of the end of the world, as seen by five young people. Gwendolyn learns to accept the love of another while sacrificing everything for her father, Demon Lord Odin. Cornelius tries to regain his human form after a wretched curse turns him into a pooka, all the while making sure that his beloved remains safe from the shadows. Mercedes learns how to govern the faerie people, having to deal with a civil war as well as the loss of the magical cauldron that is the key to the apocalypse. Oswald finds meaning in his own existence through is love for another, defeating all who get in his way. And Velvet puzzles out the meaning behind a prophecy foretelling the end of the world. Each tale is a fully fleshed out story in itself, and together they create a metaplot that has some of the grandeur of Wagner’s famous opera, upon which the story is loosely based.

On the story front, the point has to go to Odin Sphere. Valkyrie Profile has some great moments, but the metaplot is fairly obscure, and isn’t even strictly necessary to play the game. In striking contrast, Odin Sphere’s metaplot is intricately linked with the individual stories of the actors.

Looking at the characters of Odin Sphere is obviously what you’re expected to do when playing the game. The whole of each chapter is devoted to looking at one of the characters and evolving them. Gwendolyn’s arc is excellent, but Cornelius’s is only so-so. Mercedes has some pretty interesting points, as does Oswald’s. Velvet’s is actually pretty lame. Some of the supporting cast is pretty cool, like Demon Lord Odin, Ingway, and Inferno King Onyx have their especially sneaky and excellent moments. Some characters aren’t as fleshed out, but the ones who are make pretty cool characters.

The characters in Valkyrie Profile are also the focus of that game, but there are some problems. It’s actually pretty rare to have them interacting with each other, and so a lot of the characterization comes out of the initial sketch involving them. A lot of these sketches are pretty good, but there’s not a lot of development, though how they fare once they have been sent to Valhalla ameliorates this problem slightly. There’s a few side characters that are pretty awesome, like Lezard Valeth and Loki, that magnificent bastard.

Again, the point goes to Odin Sphere, though by a smaller margin. There’s just a few more interesting characters, and more characters gain some development in Odin Sphere than in Valkyrie Profile.

Well, enough dwelling on story and other aspects. The G in RPG is game, right? So how good is the game play in Valkyrie Profile? Well, frankly, it’s excellent. In dungeons, you play a side scrolling platformer, with enemies that you can hit to gain the advantage in battle. There’s also crystals you can fire, which can freeze enemies or, if fired at a wall, create a step that you can jump on. Almost all of the puzzles in the game revolve around the crystal shooting, but beyond the simple uses listed above, you can make showers of crystals to jump on, crystal fragments that float in water, and combinations of these with other crystals to reach significant heights. The puzzles generally aren’t too hard, though tome take a little bit of thinking and a lot of experimentation. There’s a number of other good puzzles not based on the crystals too.

The battles in Valkyrie Profile are very different from in other RPGs. Instead of selecting the attack, magic, or whatever command for each character from the character’s menu, you just get one of the four shape buttons assigned to each character. Pressing that button causes the character to attack. By combining character attacks, you can juggle the enemy, or break its guard, or pound it into the ground. It is possible to cast extra powerful magic spells and use items from the menu, but that’s not the main way that battles are carried out. Still, the system is turn based, because you attack until none of your characters have attack actions left, and then the enemy attacks.

Odin Sphere has some interesting gameplay as well. Dungeons take the form of connected circles. Each of these areas loops back on itself, but has at least one exit leading to another such area. Most of them have enemies, which you fight in a real time style. You jump, fly, swing, and spin to avoid enemy attacks, and attack with the weapon of whatever character you’re playing. However, each attack depletes the Power bar, so some pauses are necessary to fight effectively. Plus, each character has a list of psypher skills, which are essentially magics that do various things, like turn your character invisible or release a powerful attack. There’s also a ton of items that you’re going to use. After you’ve defeated all the enemies in an area for the first time, you get a grade. This is directly based on how long you took to defeat the enemies, and how much damage you took. The less time, the better the score, and the less damage, the better the score. With a good score, you get more items as a bonus for completing the level.

The way you level up in Odin Sphere is pretty novel. Instead of experience, each enemy releases phozons when it dies. By pressing a certain button, you can suck them into your weapon, which increases the attack power of the weapon as well as charging the gauge from which psypher skill uses are deducted. Or, you can plant seeds that grow from a certain number of phozons into a fruit or sheep (yes, sheep grow on trees. Vegan mutton!). These foodstuffs level up your hit points as well as restoring hp.

The overall gameplay point goes to Valkyrie Profile. Odin Sphere has its charms, and the level up system is pretty cool, but Valkyrie Profile has more variety of experience, from puzzling to platforming to battling. Odin Sphere has a little platforming near the end, but no real puzzles.

Both Odin Sphere and Valkyrie Profile have item creation sections, so I’m going to take a quick look at these. In Odin Sphere, by mixing special alchemical base materials with living plant creatures called mandragoras, you can create potions that can be used to improve performance or damage enemies. But first, you have to have the proper recipe. Some of the most useful recipes are revealed early on in the game, but a few don’t show up until quite late. In Valkyrie Profile, you can transmute one item into another. By equipping one of two specific accessories on Lenneth, you can change what the transmuted item will be from the base. The basic transmutations are less powerful, the ones bestowed by the Creation Gem are moderately useful, and the ones opened up by the Creation Jewel are incredibly powerful. Some things can only be transmuted at one of the three level though. It’s a tough call, but I’d say Odin Sphere’s system is a little bit better. Creating the proper material takes a little bit of thought, and it progresses relatively evenly throughout the course of the game, whereas there is a big leap halfway through Valkyrie Profile from basic transmutations all the way to Creation Jewel transmutations.

Well, it’s down to replay value. Valkyrie Profile has three modes of difficulty, easy, normal, and hard. Easy’s kinda crummy, with limited characters, dungeons and endings, but normal and hard have different dungeons, and there are two different endings (three if you count the “game over” ending). With more characters than you can use in one play through, and an optional bonus dungeon after the end of the game, replay value for this game gets somewhere around “two times through and a bit more.” You’ll want to play through both hard and normal, and get both the normal and good endings.

Odin Sphere has four difficulties, though you have to unlock the final level. There isn’t much difference between easy, normal, and hard, except minor enemy power ups. But in the highest difficulty, Heroic, unlocked by beating the game and getting the good ending, your hp never increases. This means that you have to get really good at dodging attack patterns. It’s fun to try out, just to figure out the best way to beat the game without relying on higher hp totals. Oh, and if you unlock all of the apocalypse scenes, you’ll get a special extra scene. The end result is that this game gets “beat it once, then go for the challenge of Heroic mode.”

Valkyrie Profile wins the replay value point, just because there’s actually good story reasons to enjoy a second playthrough of the game. Odin Sphere is fun, and you can pick it up and fool around for an hour or two, but there’s nothing new to the game on a second playthrough except higher difficulty.

On to numerical ratings! Valkyrie Profile, despite its issues, is a very fun game to play. The overarching story may be mostly irrelevant, but the way some characters’ stories intertwine is very interesting. Plus, there’s a deep item creation system, lots of choices to make each playthrough, tons of characters that handle differently, and some pretty good puzzles. I’m going to have to give this game a 9.3 out of 10. It’s truly an excellent game. There’s occasional issues with sound errors or freezing, but it’s not too frequent. Also, didn’t mention it, earlier, but the voice acting is excellent. That’s relatively rare in RPGs, so savor it.

Fun Fact: Most of the characters are voiced by the same voice acting cast as the American dub of Pokémon. Meowth’s voice actress also does Arngrim. 0_0

Quick Tip: Keep every artifact. If you send a good einherjär to Valhalla each chapter, you’ll be fine, and the artifacts are frequently pretty good (though some are absolutely useless).

If you liked Valkyrie Profile, you might try one of these games. Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria, is great for nostalgia for the first game, though it’s not as good a game on the whole. Odin Sphere because it’s Norse themed and surprisingly similar. Star Ocean: The Second Story is also by Tri-Ace, and has similar item creation and action elements.

Now for Odin Sphere. It’s a really fun action RPG, with lots of complex storytelling techniques deployed in its execution. You know how I usually say that graphics are irrelevant to RPGs? This is an exception. The graphics in Odin Sphere are gorgeous. Hand drawn, vibrantly colored, and well animated, looking at this game does in fact enhance the play experience. Well, the overall rating for this game is 8.7 out of 10. Pretty good, but there’s some load time issues involved in this game. Also, when there’s a lot of enemies and effects on screen, the game experiences significant slowdown. I happened to like that feature, because it made for a method acting approach to the game. The characters are reluctant to go to the underworld, and so are you, because you know there’s a painfully slow boss fight at the end. But, objectively speaking, it is a problem with the game. Also, it’s a fairly repetitive game in terms of battles. One of my favorites, but it does have issues.

Quick Tip: Napalm is your best friend. Keep lots of it around, it kills bosses dead.

How I Broke Game: Well, I don’t know if this really counts, but I’ve beaten the game on Heroic mode. It was pretty easy, truth be told.

If you liked Odin Sphere, you might like one of these games. Valkyrie Profile, because, well, duh, it’s based on Norse mythology. Grim Grimoire, I guess;  it’s also made by Vanillaware, and thus pretty. Tales of Destiny, because it’s a 2d action RPG, though there’s less strategy involved in that game.

Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete Review

There are some games that never lose that certain something which makes people want to play them, and get remade in one form or another several times. Presumably they are remade because there are people who want to play them. This is one of my major pieces of evidence for why RPGs don’t need excellent graphics, since people have as much fun playing the game now as when it was first released, despite obviously dated graphics. So, let’s take a look at a game so classic, it’s been re-made thrice (at least), and has one of the most endearing songs on the internet. I refer, of course, to Lunar: Silver Star Complete.

The story of Lunar should be immediately familiar. A boy sets out to defeat an insane villain, bent on ruling the world, aided by his many quirky companions. Well, no, it’s not original, but believe me, there are a few twists that you may not see coming. The characters, on the other hand, are really great. Each and every significant character has their very own anime intro when you first meet them, and whenever the group does something interesting, a cutscene is not far behind. Kyle, the bandit womanizer, comes out in drag, and ambushes some baddies. Going to the hot springs actually gets you an amusing still of the guys. And going through the hard as nails optional dungeon gets you to the girls’ spring… Even when a cutscene ends, you’ve still got reasonably complex character stereotypes. Yeah, they’re still pretty conventional, but they’re anything but generic. Nash, your whiny little show-off mage, actually pulls some pretty big shots. Plus, there’s a strong undercurrent of humor throughout the game, which means that your party members will frequently crack jokes, especially when you talk to npcs. It’s certainly more interesting to talk to the npcs than in many games, where you ignore everyone in town except shopkeepers and plot points.

As far as the battle system goes, it’s pretty basic. You give out commands, and party members act them out in order of their speed. However, Lunar mixes things up a little by making it necessary to move up to your enemy before launching a melee attack. At the beginning, this requires you to seriously consider your characters’ movement ranges. Probably the best part of the battle system is that power leveling will only get you so far. Minor enemies, which can occasionally be avoided on the dungeon map, don’t scale to your level, but bosses do. Power level too far, and the boss’ll cream you, since your gear won’t be up to snuff. The only reason to level up at all is that each character gains spells/abilities depending on their preset “class” at certain levels. Good for those of you who just want to play the story, but if you want character customization and grinding, you might want to look elsewhere else.

All your characters have a set of abilities, which overlap a little if not consistently. At some points in the game, you’ll have two healers, and for most of the game you’ll have two main fighters and two attack mages. This frequently happens because temporary characters join your team. In fact, it happens so much that you begin to wonder who is going to be in the final party. Some characters are pretty obviously only temporary (Lvl 99’s anyone?) but there’s a few you’ll be a bit surprised to see go. Just remember to take all their stuff!

Which brings me around to the next bit. Stuff. In Lunar, your inventory is limited. You can’t just keep lugging around your old gear, and sooner or later you’re going to have to drop things to make room for better. It’s kinda too bad, because some of the gear is mildly amusing. The Magic Robes, for example, are described as “Magically Delicious.” This ain’t no Disgaea, but it’s the thought that counts. Still, the limited inventory adds challenge, especially since characters can only use the items that they themselves are carrying. Plus, you’ll want to save room for the bromides, which are little bits of fan service for all of the female characters. Sexist? All I have to say to that is “men’s hot springs.”

Graphics? Excuse me, but I refuse. This game came out for the Sega CD, and got ported to the Playstation. Yeah, there was a Nintendo DS remake recently, but the game I’m reviewing is Silver Star Story: Complete, for the Playstation. That’s the one I own, and it’s the one I played. The other versions are supposed to be fun, but I’ve never played them and may never get the chance to do so. Whatever. In any case, graphics are about as relevant to rpgs as hypotension is to literary theory. Yeah, occasionally you get exceptions, but I’ll let you know when those games rear their ugly, or in some case gorgeous, heads.

Replay value? Well, hmm. This guy just ranks in at “once is enough, plus or minus nostalgia value.” There’s not a whole lot you can do on a second run. I did two runs because I messed up getting an optional item or two the first time, but really, there’s not a lot that you can do differently, so it would get old. You might replay it for the story or for nostalgia though.

Down to the overall rating. This game gets about 8.5 out of 10. Remember, I run most rpgs at 5, no matter how bad, so it might be something like 3.5 out of 5. Still good, but not fantastic. There’s definitely some great nostalgia surrounding this game though, so I’d definitely give it a go. Just remember to save often. When a party member leaves, they take all their stuff. You think you lost party members permanently in Final Fantasy VII?

Quick Tip: When you become dragonmaster, head back to Lann for Ghaleon’s Tear, a really good accessory. You just need to have a little chat with the elder to get it.

How I Broke Game: Ghaleon’s Tear? It makes it so you do one physical attack to all enemies instead of your normal attack options. I gave it to Nash, who has weapons that inflict status effects. Sometimes even death…

If you liked this game, you might look into these games. Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete is very similar to the first game, and has a lot of little references in it to characters and events from LSSSC. Breath of Fire III and Breath of Fire IV have similar battle systems, and somewhat of a similar attitude toward characters, making complicated stereotypes of the playable characters. Grandia has a nice, light-hearted story to match Lunar, though the battle system is pretty different.

Breath of Fire III

I want to start off this review by imagining if RPG series/companies were sodas. Yes, there’s a reason, so bear with me. Suqare-Enix, with Final Fantasy, probably represents the name brand stuff. Atlus, and its series, the Shin Megami Tensei (with spin-offs) might represent a competing main name brand, though one that’s a little less popular. There’s also Namco Bandai, with their Tales series, which might be considered like gourmet sodas by some, or recently Nippon Ichi, with their Disgaea and whatnot, might be an indie soda company. Or something like that. Whether or not you agree with those allocations, I think it’s pretty fair to say that the Breath of Fire series, by Capcom, represents the generic brand. The store brand. That’s not to say it’s bad, but it is pretty generic. Since I’m currently looking at Playstation games, I’m going to start with Breath of Fire III. I mean, that one even calls itself, on the cover “The Classic Role Playing Game.”

Breath of Fire III begins with a couple of miners facing down a dragon whelp that is not as extinct as the rest of the dragons. You take control of the dragon, and burninate your way through the mine; you get captured, and carted out into the world. From there, you assemble a motley crew of unique individuals, who help you discover the truth behind the eradication of the dragons that occurred hundreds of years ago. Ultimately, you have to save the world from a goddess bent on ruling the world with an iron fist. Yeah, that sounds like a generic story to me. There’s some pretty good moments along the way, and actually, the game does a really good job of making a sympathetic villain, but there’s not really any major twists, and there’s only a few minor twists at the end of the game.

As far as the characters go, they’re okay. Nina, the princess of Wyndia, has issues of having to be the perfect princess at the expense of being allowed to be herself. Rei, lovable rogue that he is, is fully aware that he’s an irresponsible individual, and worries about whether he can do the right thing. Garr, the holy warrior, begins to doubt whether the services he performed for his god where justified. Most of the characters are fleshed out pretty well, except possibly for Peco, who only gets a little development late in the game. The biggest problem I can see with the characters is that they’re played completely straight. There’s occasional minor humor involving Garr’s great size and strength, or Peco’s … weirdness, but the personalities of the characters aren’t really humorized.

Game play is possibly where things get the most generic. Battles play out where you enter commands for all your characters, and they and the enemies act in order of agility. Characters have a balance between fixed character classes and customizability. While each character gains certain spells at certain levels, and emphasizes certain abilities in their levels, you can apprentice them to a master, who will teach them skills and adjust what stats they gain as they level up. It’s the best of both worlds, right? Well, it doesn’t always work out that you can change a character to whatever you want, because the basic stats of the character rule out certain options. So, the masters only serve to possibly cripple a character with stats that make them balanced, but not useful. You know how in some games, “Everyone’s a Red Mage,” or can learn and cast all types of magic? The most interesting thing about this game is that instead, “Everyone’s a Blue Mage,” and can learn enemy skills that have been used against them. It’s subverted, since you can switch which skills each character has, but the concept is one of the more original ones. Ryu, the main character, can turn into dragons by accessing various genes, and one fun thing is that, depending upon what genes are selected, the dragon will have different abilities, including some unique dragons that are greater than the sum of their parts.

This game is surprisingly long for a one-disc Playstation affair. It could last you a good 60 hours or more if you’re methodical in hunting out every side quest and minigame. Plus, when you use different character classes for your characters, it changes how you can use those characters. But, on the other hand, unless you’re a contrarian and enjoy doing things you’re not supposed to do in a game, you won’t want to make your characters inefficient in their party roles. So, this game’s replay value is something like “Despite some good replay elements, it’s still only a game you’ll want to play once.” It’s kinda a shame, because it’s not a bad game, but there’s not much to be gained from a second playthrough.

The numerical rating is a good place to come back to my original analogy. Just because Breath of Fire III is the RPG equivalent of the store brand of soda, that doesn’t mean it’s a bad game. In this case, it’s actually quite a good game. The flow of the narrative is a little slow, but a lot of the more or less unrelated quests still have some important character or world development that occurs during them. All in all, this game gets a solid 8 out of 10. It’s hardly original, but it’s a good iteration of those things that have been good in lots of other games. That’s why you’ll frequently see this game on the list of games that you might want to try for my other reviews. It’s generic enough that it’s got some elements of most other games in the genre, and these elements are mostly handled well enough.

Quick Tip: When you’re walking in the desert, late in the game, DON’T READ THE DIRECTIONS IN YOUR TENT. They are wrong. Remember what the guy told you, and do that instead.

Fun Fact: That mural you see in the opening of the game? That’s depicting the characters from the first Breath of Fire. But there’s some characters missing…

If you liked this game, you should try one of these games. Breath of Fire IV has mostly the same systems, and a few cameos from III. Chrono Trigger is an excellent game, and though you don’t have much customizability for your characters, the characters themselves are great. Dragon Warrior VII does a lot of the things that Breath of Fire III does, like classes, and a pleasantly meandering plot.

Paper Mario

Some of you may be wondering by this point “Well, yeah, the Playstation and Playstation 2 had some great RPGs, but what about other systems?” Weeeell, okay. I don’t have a SNES, so I won’t go into those, but there’s always the Nintendo 64 right? Ha. Ha. Hah. But the good old N64 had two or three good RPGs, and today’s review is paying homage to one of those. Paper Mario.

Paper Mario starts off with a traditional Mario premise. “Dear Mario. Please come to the castle. Bowser’s about to kidnap me, and I need you there so that you’ll know about it and start rescuing me. Princess Peach.” So you show up, watch Bowser, yada yada, get sent flying to a corner of Mushroom Kingdom, blah blah blah. It’s not the best story out there, but it holds. The characters you meet on the way are… mostly okay. Each of the characters in your party has a special ability, and you’ll need to use them to get through the dungeons of the game. There’s some pretty decent puzzles involving the use of different character abilities. There’s one really great character (you can boo me any day Lady Bow) and the rest are good enough. Lady Bow is a boo with bows on her head, hence her name. Clever. Her special ability is to turn Mario invisible, but he can’t move while this is active. She’s also sneaky in that she’s captured the star spirit you need to rescue, but forces you to help her with her own problems before she’ll give him to you. She’s just a little sneaky, with a cultured attitude that occasionally slips. No, we don’t have amazingly deep, soul searching characters in this game. I’m not sure that’s strictly necessary for a JRPG. In any case, Lady Bow is the best of the bunch in context, which is kind of unfortunate. Kooper’s an all-Mushroom-Kingdom guy, and doesn’t really get any more development than that. You can jump on him, making him go into his shell and hit switches (and enemies) or grab items. Bombette’s a pink bombshell, but beyond the fact that she’s a girl bob-omb, she doesn’t have any interesting personality traits. She can blow up cracked walls. Lackilester is one bad Lakitu, with mildly interesting speech mannerisms, but that’s about it, since he’s your last party member, and doesn’t have much time to be developed. He can glide over spikes indefinitely. So, really, the characters are functional for the game, and their special abilities add just a little bit of variety to the otherwise pretty standard gameplay.

The gameplay is a cool combination of classic Mario, RPG, and the quirky “paper” conceit. You can get a literal jump on enemies ala Mario, but the battles play out like a standard RPG, complete with timing based attacks. You’ll find that your papery nature helps you get into some areas, but mostly it serves as a background detail that is irrelevant to the gameplay. As for your vital statistics, you have a very simple system. You have hit points, which act just like they do in every RPG. Flower points are this game’s magic points, which means you can use them for special attacks. You also get star power, which can be used for a different set of special attacks. This charges a little every turn, but there are no items that restore star power. Finally, you get a certain number of badge points. Badges help you customize your Mario. Some badges do things like give you special attacks, like the Power Bounce Badge, which lets you perform a power bounce. This attack allows you to continue hitting an enemy until you mess up the timing. There’s also badges that affect your attack power or defense power, like the Mega Rush Badge, which increases your attack by 4 when Mario has 1 hit point left. There’s even a number of general capability badges, which do various things. The Zap Tap Badge, for example, makes it so enemies that touch Mario take one damage. With each level up you get increase only one of your HP, your FP, or your B[adge]P gauges though, so you’ll have to strategize how you build up Mario. Some people enjoy having enough FP to constantly perform specials, other prefer BP for lots of customization. Finally, at the end of every chapter there’s a bit of tactical stealth espionage featuring Princess Peach.

Well, now we come to replay value. Fortunately, this is an aspect of Paper Mario that is handled quite well. Depending on the choices you make when leveling up, the game presents different challenges. Furthermore, your selection of badges can make all the difference. Prioritize defense, so you take less damage, work on your hammer skills, or even trust to luck based skills, there’s a lot of ways to set things up. Thus, this game gets “good for a couple of afternoons every once in a while.” It’s not a super long game, but sidequests extend gameplay a little, and it’s a game that will take a few sittings for most people to finish.

Overall, this is a pretty good game, especially for a console that has very few RPGs at all. There’s nothing really wrong with it, as far a games go, so I’m going to have to give it a 9 out of 10. No, it doesn’t stand out anywhere, and it’s a bit short, but for a quick romp, there are few games that are better. The gameplay’s addictive, and it never really gets old. That counts for something.

Quick Tip: In the Dry Dry Ruins, there’s a room where you’ll have to switch the orientation of red and green staircases to get over a wall to the Super Hammer. But if you walk along the ledge above the Super Hammer chest, against the far wall you’ll find a hidden room, with the completely useless Slow Go badge. LOL.

If you liked this game, I’d recommend you look at these games. Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, is pretty much better in almost every way, which is saying something. Grandia and Grandia III are pretty fun, and incorporate some pre-emptive striking into their encounters.

Persona 3 Review

Some games have it easy. They come out, and everyone will buy them immediately based solely on the name. Final Fantasy comes to mind, but there are other offenders in the RPG market. The Legend of Zelda is perhaps even more widespread, Dragon Quest (known until recently as Dragon Warrior in the States) has had a big following, and of course the Pokémon series. What’s really exciting is when games come out to immensely greater acclaim than previous titles in the series. I’m going to be reviewing one such game today. Persona 3 came out, and took critics by storm. Persona 2, on the Playstation, had garnered some praise, building on the slightly creepy, stylish world of the original Persona, also one the Playstation. However, Persona 3 brought the series to a whole new level of popularity. No longer was it just cult series, it now stood out as one of the best RPGs for the PS2. It’s also one of my favorite games. Now let’s go on to the review. I’ve been waiting for this.

Well, Persona 3 starts out with the protagonist walking around town. Then you see a girl with a gun, which she eventually aims at her own head. !! However, when the protagonist get off the train, it starts getting weird, as all the electronics stop working, everything turns green, and where all the people were, there’s just a bunch of coffins. !?! So, yeah, you find out that, at midnight, there’s an extra hour in the day that only some people can experience, and that there’s these creepy things called “Shadows” that attack people who aren’t inside a coffin. Your new school turns into a freaky tower, and you don’t know why. The main drive of the plot is figuring out what’s going on with the dark hour, and how to put a stop to it, with a backdrop of people becoming living zombies as a result of shadow attacks. Naturally, you eventually find yourself on a quest to save the world, but it’s not quite so simple. Saying anything more would be spoiling this game’s really quite adequate plot.

The characters in this game are great. The main character is basically a self-insert avatar for the player, so he’s pretty bland. Emo, but bland. Headphones, one lock of hair covering an eye, skinny like a stick, yep, he’s emo. But Junpei, in addition to being a loud obnoxious guy, also has his own major issues that he tries to deal with, like his own mediocrity. Mitsuru’s not just a hot, mature ojousama, she’s also got a major chip on her shoulder. And so on. There’s some really traumatic events that happen during the course of the game, e.g., a couple people die. These events really bring out some realistic and sympathetic reactions from the main characters, which just serves to increase the realism of the game. Even a lot of the NPC’s are pretty cool, due in no small part to the Social Links system. I’ll get to that in a minute, but the dating sim aspect this adds to the game seriously benefits the quality of the NPCs as far as personality and interest go. Since there’s conversations with each of the Social Link NPCs at each of the ten levels of the relationship, they all develop in one way or another as you interact with them. Plus, you can go on outings with the guys or dates with the girls. Yes, of course you can date the girls. Unfortunately, you can’t date the guys, unless you’re playing the Playstation Portable version, but even then, only if you play a female protagonist.

Personas are this game’s classes, basically. Each one has a certain set of ability scores, elemental weaknesses/resistances, and certain spells or special attacks or abilities. The main character’s protagonist power is that he can decide what abilities to keep on his Personas, create new Personas, and switch Personas mid-battle. Each Persona can only have 8 abilities, including spells, special attacks, and special abilities. When you have too many abilities, you can choose which ones to forget, either old ones to make room for new ones, or the new ones if you like the skills you have already. You create Personas by fusing two (or more) Personas together, making a new Persona based on the ones you used. That Persona will inherit some of the skills, spells, or special attacks of the “parent.” Finally, once per turn in battles, you can switch your Persona to any one you have in your possession at that time. This means you can get out a Persona that is strong against enemy attacks, or has an attack that is super-effective versus those enemies.

Wow, your main character is awesome! Too bad you can’t directly control you party members. Wait what? Yep, that’s right. Despite being a fully turn based battle system, you can’t input commands for your party members. You can set AI tasks, like heal/support or full offensive, but you can’t make them use a certain spell at a certain time. This is usually alright, but during some of the boss fights, it can be a problem. Apart from storyline bosses, there are “minibosses” located at specific floors of the main dungeon. Many of these minibosses are actually much more difficult to defeat than the bosses in the story. This is in no small part because the A.I. of your teammates is frequently incredibly stupid. Faced with the main character at low health, and another teammate poisoned, a character with healing spells will frequently cure the poison. Did I mention that if your main character dies, it’s game over? Yeah. There’s also instant death spells that are commonly possessed by enemies. Yay.

Now that I’ve covered the battle system, it sees like a good time to examine the Social Link system. So, what is a Social Link? Basically, you can form social relationships with specific individuals. Each of these social links is represented by one of the major arcana of tarot. For example, Fushimi Chihiro, the student council treasurer, is Justice, whereas Hiragi Keisuke is [The Wheel of] Fortune. The higher the level of your social link, the more bonus experience it gains when you make it via the persona creation system. It really does matter who you hang out with, and how much. Also, with the girls you can date (Yuko, Chihiro, Mitsuru, Yukari, Fuuka, and Aigis) there’s a certain point where your relationship becomes intimate, meaning they’ll get mad at you if you are intimate with another girl, or ignore them too long. Just like in real life! Whenever you hang out with any character, they get closer to you. If they’ve reached a certain level of intimacy, you have a conversation with them where you can choose one of three dialogue options at various points in the conversation. Some answers increase the number of brownie points with a character, some do nothing, and some will make the character really mad at you. It’s handled pretty well, so that it’s fairly difficult in most cases to get someone to hate you without trying to do so. The only issue with the social link system is if you want to be a completion whore about it. It requires a meticulous schedule to get all of the social links maxed out in one playthrough, which gives you less time to enjoy the other aspects of the game.

Fortunately, news is good on the replay end of things. There is a new game+ feature, which has your stats, items, and Persona library (but not Persona inventory) carried over into a new game. This is especially important for your social stats, academics, courage, and charm. The necessity to increase these stats through various time consuming activities is the main reason why it is hard to get all of the social links in one playthrough, because some social links require you to have a certain level of each one. Unfortunately for replay value, with all of your old gear, and the ability to get back some of your old powerhouse Personas, the game’s not terribly hard. I’d give this one “play twice; once for the story, and the second time to take your time and get everything you missed out on.”

Well, I have to say, this is one of the best RPGs for the Playstation 2. It’s got great characterization, is moderately challenging, has decent replay value, and has a somewhat unusual setting. Not many RPGs are ostensibly set in the real world. Plus, it’s got some elements reminiscent of Dating Sims and Monster Catching games, so it’s not entirely standard RPG fare. So the rating? 9.5. It’s really good, but it’s easy to see how things could be improved. Especially, the dungeon crawling can get tedious, going through hundreds of floors of randomly generated hallways.

Quick Tips: You can leave the dorm in the evening to go to the mall. You should do this at every opportunity, even if you’re sick, but not if you need to go to Tartarus. Also, go to the bathroom. Seriously.

How I Broke Game: Well, there is how I got Junpei (weak to wind) an accessory that makes him immune to wind. However, I made Laevateinn about halfway through the game, which allowed me to beat Chidori in two turns when I fought her.

If you liked this game, you should look at playing one of these games. Persona 4 is everything you loved about Persona 3, except better. The social links are better, they have voice acting, they don’t play by the same rules, your party members can be turned to manual controls, the list goes on and on. Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love is a Dating Sim S[trategy]RPG, in that order, where Persona 3 could be considered an RPG Dating Sim in that order. However, Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love is another great game to play with an audience, because much of the Dating Sim is hilarious, and the whole game is totally over the top. Thousand Arms is another of the elusive Date Sim/RPG genre, and one that is an affectionate parody of both of its parent genres.

Chrono Trigger Review

Okay, today’s review is gonna be big. I mean, we’re talking about one of the two best RPGs to come off the Super Ninetendo. Are you curious what the other one is? Well, you’ll have to wait a good while, because I’m not reviewing that game so soon after Chrono Trigger! Oh, I’m so happy they re-released this game as part of Final Fantasy Chronicles. Never mind the added cut scenes (though those are nice) this game is a ton of fun. Without further ado, Chrono Trigger.

The story starts with Chrono, typical silent protagonist, going to the fair. There, his friend Lucca’s newest machine sends him into the past, where he learns many secrets affecting the future of his world. To save the world from its current future, he has to change events in the past, and entirely remove something from the world. Something big. This summary doesn’t really do the plot justice, because every time you think you’ve got things figured out there’s a new twist. Some of them you’ll see coming, some will be genuinely surprising. My plot summary is vague precisely so that I don’t inadvertently spoil the plot for anyone. Ultimately, I think Chrono Trigger’s plot is one of the few truly original plots for an RPG.

The characters you meet in the game are mostly pretty cool. Chrono’s a bit bland, but Marle is a refreshingly robust tomboy princess, and Robo the robot is remarkably likeable. But Frog, the human knight turned amphibian, is probably my favorite of the non-secret characters. There’s a secret character, but don’t worry, it’s pretty hard to miss getting them.

Part of what makes the characters fun is the way in which they can perform special attacks together. Each character has their own set of special attacks, which they gain by reaching a certain level. Some of these techs can be combined with other characters’ special attacks to form double and even triple techs. It’s not too outrageous to say that mastering the appropriate use of techs is the key to beating the game. It certainly makes party selection vitally important. For example, two of the main physical attackers, Frog and Ayla, have a double tech that restores lots of hp, making them great healers. Anyhow, when you’re walking around in a dungeon, you can usually see the enemies coming, and sometimes avoid them. However, there’s times when you’ll get ambushed at a certain spot, so you can’t avoid all battles. Still, it’s a refreshing change from random battles. Also, in battles, there’s some interesting dynamics. Some monsters will attack or eat other monsters, rewarding you for observing your enemies and deciding, “No, I’m not going to attack you until you’ve eaten all of them.”

Replay value? Chrono Trigger defined replay value for RPGs. The New Game + feature was absolutely revolutionary when it came out, and has become a trend for games that want serious replay value. But did it really work for Chrono Trigger, or was it an idea ahead of its time? Well, there’s a lot going for Chrono Trigger. The multiple endings to the game give a pretty good reason to play things through another time, and add a little bit of a puzzle element to the game. It’s tough to figure out how to trigger some of the endings. It’s nice that the game saves them for you, and saves your stats, so that you can focus on blasting through the game rather than power leveling or anything. Heck, you can even try out different combinations of characters, though with story mandated pairings that you’ll have to work with at various points, there’s not many that you’ll never have tried before. So, yeah, the New Game + system worked pretty well for Chrono Trigger, all told. I’ll give it a “Play it normally once, and then New Game + until you can beat Lavos with just Chrono.”

Well, gosh, already to the rating? Time flies. Chrono Trigger is an older game, which does tend to mean a little bit of a shorter playtime. It’s not unreasonable to expect 30 hours or less to a playthrough, and new game+s are even faster. Not that that’s a bad thing, it’s just that Chrono Trigger will likely leave you faster than you might like. Then again, there is some good stuff in further replays. I think that I’d give this game a 9.1 out of 10. It’s a great game, and there’s a lot going for it, but it feels a little too short for my liking. I don’t know why, I’ve played shorter games, but this one feels like it should be longer. Not like there’s a lack of sidequests either. Oh well.

Quick Tip: If you encounter sealed chests in the past, examine them, but don’t open them! You’ll get a better item if you open the same chest in the future. After you’ve done that, you might head back to the past for the goodies.

Fun Fact: Ozzie, Flea, and Slash are all named after musicians, from the bands Black Sabbath, Guns N Roses, and Red Hot Chili Peppers, respectively. And Akira Toriyama, creator of Dragon Ball, did the character designs for this game. Really, you should know these already. There’s another fun one. Listen to Robo's Theme ("instrumental"). Now listen to "Robo's Theme". Yes. That’s right. They Rick Rolled people years before it was popular. They must be able to travel through TIME! (Or perhaps they just sound kinda similar, happens all the time. Oh well.)

If you liked this game, you might want to try one of these games. Chrono Cross, so long as you think of it as a completely separate game, has a few cameos and some similar battle elements. Breath of Fire III has a lot of the interesting monster dynamics type things. Suikoden also has a bunch of characters who have combination attacks, though most only have one or two at most.

Grandia

Heyas, rpg fans, today I’m gonna talk about one of my all-time favorite games, Grandia. Ugh. What a name. It brings to mind burly muscle men, blood, sweat, and all the plot of dead rat. I mean, really, what kind of guy thought up the name? I get that you want to make your game sound cool and all, but this name practically screams delusions of grandeur.

Or, so I thought before I played the game. The opening cinematic was the first thing that tipped me off as to what this game really was. Sure, there’s lots of destruction and huge mechs or whatever, but there’s also a bunch of kids. Oh, that must mean this really is a JRPG. It’s a good opening though, with a great piece of music (the theme of Grandia) and some cool cg scenes… too bad they’re all just clips from in-game cutscenes.

Right, well, on to the story. Grandia is about a spiky haired guy named Justin who has to save the world from a power hungry bastard who unleashes the power of an ancient evil. Fortunately, Justin is helped during his journey by a number of unlikely allies. Yeah, it’s a standard story, one you’ll see repeated fairly often. However, Justin starts out not as an adventurer, but as a kid just looking for some fun. The first quest of the game is running around the first town finding some pieces of legendary gear which consist of the “warrior’s helmet” a.k.a. battered pot, “shield of light” a.k.a. pot lid, and the “spirit sword” a.k.a. wooden sword. It’s kinda cute, and Justin really does feel like a 14 year old boy. While the game can get serious at times, it doesn’t ever really lose the sense of humor evident in your first quest.

Most of the characters are similarly interesting, with the main love interest, Feena, being a spunky older girl, who has a lot more experience and sometimes acts as the voice of reason. There’s a few characters who are not so great, like Liete, who is completely flat, with no real development or distinct personality. And the main villain is nothing special. “Rar, I will unleash ancient evil to rule the world. I sure hope nobody decides to explore outside of their hometowns ever.” Not the greatest planner or schemer. Some of the sub-villains are cool enough, like Nana, Saki, and Mio, the trio of sadistic girl army officers. On the whole, the characters aren’t original at all, but they’re well portrayed.

A RPG must be a game, and though likeable characters or good story can cover for a lot, if the gameplay is bad, there’s not much hope. Grandia’s battle system is pretty solid, especially considering that battles only occur when you run into an enemy on the field. It’s actually possible to avoid a fair number of fights entirely, though that might leave you hurting when you have to fight a boss. But maybe not, because this game is not actually that hard. When involved in a battle, there’s a bar that your characters’ icons move along, as well as the icons of the enemies. There’s a space on the bar where you enter a command, but you have to wait a little while your character’s icon gets to the acting spot on the bar. When there, they execute the command, either in real time for a normal attack, or stopping time, for a magic or special attack. You can cancel an enemy’s attack with a powerful attack (special attack, magic, or the simple critical command) made while a character has selected an action but is still waiting to execute that attack. Also, the level up system for magic is exploitable. You gain experience in one or two of the four elements for using spells of the corresponding element, even outside of battle. Likewise, you gain experience when you do an attack with a certain type of weapon equipped, but this isn’t possible outside of battle. Once you get 100 experience, your magic or weapon levels up, granting you more mp at each of the three levels of magic, and an ability boost related to the weapon or magic used. Each character has a list of magic and special skills. You can see what level of what element or weapon type you need to have achieved to obtain the next special attack or spell.

As far a replay value goes, if we consider a scale from “No.” to “Take this game on a journey to deep space, it’s seriously that much fun to play through again and again,” Grandia gets “one, maaaybe two plays through.” It’s a good game, and it’s possible you might miss one or two things the first time round, but there’s no particular incentive to go through the game again. No “New Game +” feature or anything like that.

Wait, you want to hear an evaluation of the graphics in this game? I know I’m going to have to say this again, but I don’t think graphics are particularly relevant to rpgs. Sure, there’s some cases where the graphics really do get in the way of enjoying the experience, and there’s a few games where the art actually has a major effect on how good the game is, but those are the exceptions, not the rule. Am I to say that Grandia is a worse game than Grandia Xtreme (more on that thing later) simply because Grandia is several years older? I don’t think so.

Okay, down to a numerical rating. I should warn you, I love RPGs. That’s my thing, after all. So, on a ten point scale, I pretty much give every RPG a 5 at least based solely on the fact that I like the genre. So I guess you can think of this scale as a five point scale, from 5 (offal) to 10 (sirloin). And for Grandia… 8.9. It is one of my favorite games of all time, but there’s some issues. No replay value to speak of, the Playstation port freezes with some regularity (I had to beat a certain boss several times because the game froze before I could get to a save point), and a lack of sidequests (there are three bonus dungeons, that’s it), and a few other niggling features (like questionable voice acting) prevent this game from being top of the pile.

Quick Tip: Rotate the camera aggressively when you play this game. There’s a lot of semi-hidden treasures that you won’t see unless you look really hard. Also, don’t forget the left hand rule of maze solving.

How I Broke Game: I took the time in the Dom Ruins and got resurrection magic (Water 16) before any of my other magics were above like 7.

If you enjoyed this game, you might want to check out the following games. Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete and Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete, which both have a similarly light-hearted approach, and somewhat similar battle systems. Grandia II has a fairly similar battle system, and a decent plot.