Disgaea: Hour of Darkness Review

Strategy RPGs have been seriously lacking in this blog, for some reason. It certainly isn’t because I don’t like them, because I do. Maybe it’s because I haven’t played all that many. Sure, it’s not been a genre that’s received quite as much attention in the JRPG world as the Action RPG, but there are plenty of great games of this type out there. Strangely enough, I tend to think of Disgaea: Hour of Darkness as the typical SRPG, even though it’s really not that standard for the genre. Oh, who cares, let’s just get into the thick of it.

The story in this game centers around Laharl, the heir to the throne of the netherworld. It doesn’t really have a plot, per se, but each episode (chapter) has a mostly self-contained story about life in the netherworld. That said, once all of the actors are assembled, you start to get into the real story, which is pretty gripping. What strikes me most about the story is the style. While it can have its emotional, dramatic moments, the game doesn’t take itself seriously at all. It parodies all sorts of anime clichés, to the point where there’s an episode preview of each chapter. What it boils down to is an affectionate look at the silliness in anime, fantasy, RPGs, and a few other things.

What really drives the story in Disgaea are the characters. Laharl is pretty funny with his little kid/evil overlord antics, and actually develops into an interesting tsundere (gasp!). I actually quite like Flonne, the angel trainee sent to assassinate Laharl’s father (who’s already dead…), because she’s really cutesy, sweet, and a total dork. No character list from this game would be complete without CAPTAIN GORDON, DEFENDER OF EARRRRRTH! Gordon is absolutely hysterical, with his kids tv show hero personality, and the way he constantly spouts off exactly the trite sorts of lines you would expect from such shows, play straight to the point of parody. But really, all of the characters in this game are great, including the villains, who do a great job of being sympathetic yet unequivocally antagonistic.

Now, Disgaea does have some truly innovative features to their combat system, but the base is pretty standard. You have a square grid, with the floor being of different heights throughout. You can have up to eight units on your team at a time, and on your turn you move them all into position. You can choose when to execute a specific action, which is sometimes very important. Once all your characters have gone, the enemies go. Simple, right? Well, things get complicated pretty fast. First off, you can pick up and throw objects and characters (even enemies) on the battle field. You can even stack up all of your characters in one stack if you like, though there’s not often much reason to do so. Then there are inanimate (in this game at least) colored targets called geo prisms, which add an effect, bonus, or penalty to squares that are flashing the same color (called geo panels) as the square the rest on. Utilizing the beneficial effects from these little guys is one strategic element, but the main point is that, if you destroy the geo prism, it turns all the colored squares it’s sitting on the same color that it is, damaging anything else that's on said squares in the process. Including other geo prisms. One effective strategy is to chain these attacks so that they remove all the geo prisms from the map, dealing massive damage to all enemies (and allies!) unlucky enough to be sitting on colored squares. This will usually result in a huge bonus, netting you extra items or money. Setting up the chains actually puts me in mind of a puzzle game, and that’s no bad thing in an RPG. Anything to take your mind off the grind for a bit.

While you’ll eventually have enough unique, story related characters in your roster to fill out a full team, you’ll want to make at least a few generic characters in the early stages of the game. There are several classes to choose from, from classics like warriors, healers, and mages, to some strange ones like scouts (who control geo prisms and panels) and prinnies (penquins that explode when thrown.) Each class can unlock more powerful versions of that class as well as totally new classes. You can also create monster characters like dragons, ghosts and scarecrows.

The final element isn’t very complicated, but it’s a huge part of the draw of the game. Each item in the game has an item world, which is a series of randomly generated levels with enemies. Occasionally you’ll encounter a specialist, who will improve the stats of the item. Anyhow, the world takes the format of a dungeon, where you descend to the next level when you get to the appropriate square or kill everything. The more levels you get through, the more powerful the item becomes when you leave it. Needless to say, some people spend hours powering up their items, trying to make the ultimate equipment.

There’s one rating that I’ve been itching to give a game for a while, and Disgaea is the game that deserves it the most. The replayability of this game is astounding. First of all, there are at least five endings that I know of for sure, and I believe the official count is somewhere around seven or eight. There is a new game plus feature, and there are a large number of ways to play the game, and a great variety of classes to use. Plus, the randomly generated item worlds give even greater depth, adding in some of the puzzle elements of the game that are actually lacking in the main storyline. Finally, although they are quite difficult, there are several sidequests and optional areas to explore throughout the game. In short, this game is one that you can “take on a mission to deep space, it’s that addictive.”

Now, overall, this is a great game. Normally I’d be skeptical when a game says something like “games of this genre are going to get a serious kick in the pants” but in this case, it’s kinda warranted. I think if you ask an American gamer to name an SRPG, Disgaea is likely to come up almost immediately. Definitely before Fire Emblem, a more established series in Japan. 9.8 is my final rating. I can’t put my finger on anything wrong with it, and it was definitely fun enough that I played it again after I lost 100 plus hour save (entirely my fault). It’s an excellent game, but for some strange reason I can’t bring myself to give it a perfect score. Maybe it’s because I didn’t find the class system to be as exceptional as the rest of the game. Whatever the reason, it’s not perfect, but it’s pretty close.

Fun Fact: Prier[e] from La Pucelle: Tactics is in this game, since Disgaea was released after La Pucelle in Japan.

Quick Tip: Get a scout as soon as you can. Their dark cannon ability allows them to summon a turret that can annihilate enemies of much higher level than you (like the ones you might find in a promotion exam), plus they can change the geo panels in an item world.

If you liked this game, you might want to ply one of the following games. Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories is more of what you liked from the original, with minimal updates. Final Fantasy Tactics is an SRPG in a similar vein to Disgaea, but with the typical Final Fantasy series flair, and a much darker plotline. The two Lunar games, Lunar Silver Star Story Complete and Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete have several moments where they dip into the genre parodying humor so evident in Disgaea.

Chrono Cross Review

Everyone loved Chrono Trigger. It’s not an exaggeration to place it as one of the best RPGs ever, at least using the scale of user reviews. So when a game that was supposedly a sequel to this timeless classic came out, everyone was expecting an enhanced, updated graphics Chrono Trigger. No, no one would probably say that’s what they wanted, since rehashes don’t tend to get good reviews, but that’s honestly what people were expecting. Instead, they got Chrono Cross. Is that really a bad thing?

So, the story of Chrono Cross revolves around Serge, who lives on the main island in the El Nido archipelago where the entire game takes place. He seems to be just an ordinary boy, but his life is turned upside down when he accidentally stumbles into another world where he died several years ago. Naturally, to set things right, he tries to repair the damage, aided by his friends.

And oh, the friends he has. There’s Glenn, the young knight in training (he can dual wield you know.) There’s Skelly, the skeletal clown whose bones you must find before you can recruit him. There’s Razzly, the fairy whom you save from a terrible hydra. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. This game has a ton of unique playable characters, more than pretty much any other game that’s not in the Suikoden series. And you can’t even get them all in one playthrough. It’ll take at least one and three-quarters playthroughs to get them all, and that’s over three separate save files. That said, development isn’t a big theme for most of them. There are three main characters who get developed pretty well, and maybe another six secondary characters who get some decent development in side quests and the like. The rest are pretty much just a funny voice to go in the script. Yeah, a bunch of them have funny accents, but is that really significant? Not really, although it is fun seeing their in-character reactions to scripted events in the story.

Probably the biggest disappointment to fans of Chrono Trigger was the way techs were handled in this game. First off, there are far fewer of them. Second, those few that there are, are spread among the huge cast, so very few characters have any significant tech action at all. One contributing factor was the way magic was handled in the game. Basically, you can equip magic in slots of various levels, with higher level slots being able to equip more powerful spells. These slots recharge every time you enter a battle. A character’s unique special attacks are usually limited to one third level tech, one fifth level tech, and one seventh level tech. Since these can only be used once per battle, and using a dual or triple tech consumes all three spells, it’s rarely worth it. Anyhow, to cast spells, you store up successful hits on the enemy. The attack options are heavy, medium, and light, ranked from lowest chance to hit to highest. Light hits charge one spell level, medium two, heavy three. It sounds pretty complicated, and it is, but you’ll get the hang of it once you’ve played the game for a while.

One thing that fans of the previous game weren’t (or shouldn’t be) disappointed in is the replay value of Chrono Cross. Not only do you get multiple endings depending on when you end the game, just like in Chrono Trigger, you also receive definite power ups, like the ability to speed up or slow down the game. Not substantially game breaking, it does make the game more fun the second time around, when you can just speed through dialogue and scenes that you don’t want to see. Plus, new game plus is the only way to unlock the full cast of characters. Why you would need to do this, since most of the characters are interchangeable, is another question. So, then, the rating is “not unlimited, but good enough to keep you coming for at least two playthroughs.”

Down to the tough part. Giving this game a sum value. Now, a lot of people were disappointed because this game really didn’t have much to do with Chrono Trigger at all. There are a few references, but that’s about it. It’s really more closely akin to Magical Dreamers, which wasn’t really released stateside, so whatever. I don’t think it’s fair to consider this divergence from expectation a bad thing. Really, what you end up with is a great game, which has an interesting story, good game mechanics, and solid replay value. So, I’d have to give this one 9.0 out of 10. It’s not perfect, there’s little to break up the normal gameplay, and most characters are sparsely developed if at all, but none of these factors are major in any way.

Quick Tip: There are very few (three) characters in the game who can steal, and each of them can only do so once per battle. When you fight the fire dragon, make sure that he’s in his final form before you steal, or you’ll miss out on the great item he has.

Fun Fact: When you get to the center of the Dead Sea, the tragedienne enemies will introduce themselves to you, as if they were competing in a beauty pageant. One of them is Richard, age 29, who’s protesting sexism in beauty pageants.

If you liked this game, you might want to look into some of these other games. Suikoden and any of the games in that series, since they also have tons of playable characters in them. Tales of Symphonia or Tales of Destiny II, both of which deal with two worlds having to learn to coexist. Dark Cloud 2 also has some alternate universe time shenanigans bullshit, so that’s always a fun possibility.

Vagrant Story Review

I’m not a Squenix fanboy. Duh. I also don’t have anything against the company, and especially not towards the old Enix. However, there’s no denying that Squaresoft had some excellent games made under it during the Playstation era, and one of those is what we’re going to look at today. Vagrant Story is one of those darker, cult titles that Squaresoft put out occasionally once upon a time. Which is one of the most compelling things about it for me. It’s not your typical Squareshit.

So, the story follows the exploits of Ashey Riot, Riskbreaker, as he travels through the ruined city of Lea Monde as he tries to stop a strange cult from penetrating the secrets of the city destroyed by ancient power. Along the way, there are several factions that Ashley has to deal with, none of them entirely on his side, and most of them firmly against him. Oh, did I mention that this entire game is happening a week in the past? Yeah, the first thing we learn is that Ashley is wanted for the murder of a prominent aristocrat. So, yeah, that’s a cool bit of unconventional storytelling there, good job. And, they would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for the characters.

So many characters! You just can’t keep track of them all. Especially since you only get to play as one of them. Ashley is purposely kept a mostly unknown element, though you do get insight into his dutiful personality. And, honestly, I couldn’t keep track of any of the other characters enough to write anything about them. Sorry. Still, there’s plenty of interesting dynamics and backstabbings. Really, it’s more that the side characters are too interesting than that they’re forgettable.

The combat system is entirely in real time. You have to get close enough to hit with whatever weapon you have equipped. Then, if you press the triangle, circle, or square button at the right time, you can add a chain ability, which adds another attack of some sort to your action. You can chain these however long you want, but your Risk raises with each attack, and the higher the Risk, the lower the chance to hit. There are also break arts, which are essentially special attacks, and magics, which should be self explanatory. You can attack or use magic at any time, but Risk makes it so you’ll need to budget at least a little.

Probably the best part of the game is the weapon synthesizing. By combining two weapons or pieces of armor, you can gain better (or at least different) pieces of equipment. Also, combining certain materials together yields a stronger material, which means increased effectiveness. Each time you use a weapon to kill an enemy, that weapon becomes more effective versus that type of enemy. You can add crystals to the weapon to increase its stats as well. So, there’s a lot of customizability inherent in the system, not even considering there are a staggering number of weapon types to play around with, from pole arms to one-handed swords to crossbows, each with their own timing for chain abilities.

There are puzzles in this game, but they’re mostly pretty meh. Not bad, and worth the few minutes of cogitatin’ they provide, but nothing to devote an entire section to. They certainly don’t contribute to the replay value, although you can open up the way to areas unreachable in the first playthrough if you play the game a second time. So, not a lost cause at all. You could always use a different weapon type on subsequent excursions for funsies. And, with that miniscule chance you can get a great material version of an amazing weapon early on in the game, it’s totally “play again to fuck with the game.” The only problem is that it’s a relatively short game.

This game is good. The story is dark and intriguing, the weapon making aspect is good for hours of gameplay, and it even has real content for those who want to replay the game. Now, I know that it’s weird, saying there’s a good story with too many characters to keep track of, but it’s like one of those old novels like The Count of Monte Cristo or The Hunchback of Notre Dame. There are tons of great characters, so many in fact that they blend together in the telling of the story. The only major complaint that I have with the game is that there are enemies that can easily instantly kill you if they use a certain attack. That’s just not cool. Anyway, the game’s overall rating is 8.3 out of 10. It definitely comes out ahead of the curve, but, well, it’s too limited in its scope to be a real powerhouse. The story is pretty linear, and there’s not much in the way of diversion from the main action of the game.

Quick Tip: For the final boss, you’ll want two things. The spell that negates the first magic attack leveled at you, and a weapon with good range that is easy to use chain abilities with. Basically, protect yourself from the magic attacks, and then get the longest chain possible.

Fun Fact: Vagrant Story is set in Ivalice, the same world as Final Fantasy Tactics, and theoretically also Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and Final Fantasy XII.

If you enjoyed this game, you might look into one of these other games. Parasite Eve is also an action RPG with a dark tone, and a fun weapon customization system. Final Fantasy XII has a comparably intricate, politically grounded storyline. The Legend of Dragoon has a battle system that is much more rigid and turn based, but retains some good button press timing elements.

Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana Review

You know, I have a real soft spot for games that never received much acclaim. It’s really quite fun playing a game that not many people will, and I always figure that someone has to love these games. Unless of course they’re actually terrible games. But for a mediocre or average game, I like to give the underdog a chance. Today’s game is not on many people’s radars, so hopefully I’ll be able to get the word out about it. Now, Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana was the first game in the series to be brought to the US, and it apparently fared well enough that the entire series started showing up over here. The subsequent games will have to wait until I can find them somewhere. Until then, let’s start off the series right.

The premise of Eternal Mana is thus. In the not so distant past, alchemists led a golden age of civilization, and created the fabulous city of Avenberry with the help of the mystical beings known as mana. However, one day they tried to create an entirely new mana through which they could channel elements and create artifacts. The plan backfired, and the great city fell into ruin. Generations passed, and alchemist became scarce. Enter Klein, inheritor of a grand family tradition of alchemy, come to the town of Kavoc that sprang up to meet the needs of those adventurous enough to seek their fortunes in the ruined Avenberry. Along the way, the plot thickens, and Klein’s party becomes aware of a new attempt to harness absolute power so as to take over the world. Yes, I’d like one generic RPG plot please, hold the surprise twist at the end. Actually, the plot is pretty segmented, because a lot of the game is made up of apparently pointless fetch quests.

Well shoot. Looks like the story isn’t going to keep us playing. Maybe the characters will? Certainly not our protagonist Klein, because he’s boring and has stupidly overpowered protagonist powers. He’s the only one who can heal for most of the game, and the only one with access to a variety of elemental attacks. Lita, the leading female, is surprisingly decent, combining a good amount of upbeat energy with some quite somber interludes. Delsus is pretty funny, being the older guy of the party who enjoys wine, women, and… well, you get the idea. His interactions with Lita as the foil form some of the more interesting dialogues in the game. The villain and the rival miniboss squad are both underwhelming, with the villain being especially bland. His motivations are left entirely undeveloped, and really, you hardly see him at all during the game. There is a certain amount of anticipation in the game over acquiring your sixth party member, but it’s drawn out a little bit too long.

Let’s see, how about the game system? Battles play out in classic turn based fashion, with each character having their own special moves and passive defensive abilities. Most characters have a few attacks that can affect an area, so enemy grouping is also important in battles. Outside of battle, you can level up each character’s skill by spending skill points gained at each character level. Characters can be equipped with mana gain bonus points to certain skills when their mana accrues a certain amount of experience. In keeping with the alchemical theme of the game, Klein creates mana items from pure elements he absorbs from random junk lying around, and these disposable items form the backbone of his abilities. It’s a simple yet effective system, with at least the illusion of customizability.

Real customization comes in with the crystal synthesizing. Items called mana stone can be turned into crystals which can be combined with other crystals and/or attached to certain weapons and accessories, granting abilities to the weapon itself. It’s an intimidating system at first, since you can use any of your 9 or so mana allies to create crystals from the 11 mana stone types. Once you get the hang of it, you can get some pretty cool effects by combing various properties, assuming you have the patience to try out hundreds of combinations. Or you could just look at a guide.

Finally, this game’s use of mana abilities is worth mentioning. Most of the mana come with a special command. This might be something simple like destroying blocks, or it could be preventing damage floors from affecting you. Combined with a few standalone powers, they form a solid exploration and puzzle solving mechanic. Plus, there are things called growloons to destroy, and reaching a few of these beasties can be tricky.

Replay value is “zilch.” Really, no good reason to play this game more than once. There are a couple of missable items, which could make filling out the item collection impossible, but that’s about it. The game is pretty linear, there’s not much customization at all until the very end game, and there’s only the merest shadow of a carry over feature. Basically, once you beat the game, you can save after the credits, which opens up an optional dungeon. Take your time and get everything in one go, because you won’t have any incentives to go back.

The final numerical score for this game needs to wait just a second, because there are a few things that should be talked about. Shop synthesis involves giving shops ingredients and getting them to make items for you. In two of the game’s shops, this opens up interesting characters who aren’t directly related to the story, but instead provide some pleasant side stories. The item collector who will unlock music and images in exchange for finding sets of items in the game is another fun sidequest. These mitigate some of the unfortunate nature of the plot, and allow this game to be solidly fun instead of mediocre. The rating is simply 7.5 out of 10. It’s got okay puzzle solving and exploration, good enough characters, and surprisingly fun sidequests, but its story is lame, dungeons are ridiculously short, and there’s little in the way of strategy options until quite late in the game.

Quick Tip: If you have a limited supply of one element necessary for an alchemy recipe, one way to stretch things is to make only one item at a time. If the mana are healthy and happy enough, they will frequently make one extra item, so you can sometimes get two items for the price of one.

How I Broke Game: I gave Arlin a weapon with a holy attack, a fire attack, and a straight up extra attack. This made him do ridiculous damage, which was actually necessary for the optional boss at the end of the bonus dungeon.

If you liked this game, you might want to look at some of these games. Wild Arms and Wild Arms 2 both have quite similar puzzle mechanics, but the puzzles in those games are much better. Dark Cloud, and to a certain extent Dark Cloud 2 have weapon synthesis systems that are moderately similar to the one in Eternal Mana. Finally, Thousand Arms is another game with a similarly corny RPG feel to it.

Parasite Eve Review

I haven’t said it before, but it’s hard to make a good horror RPG. A lot of your genre standards simply don’t work in the context of an RPG. If you can theoretically defeat monsters just by leveling up, it’s not really scary, even if the monster designs are ugly. Also, jump scares are more difficult to pull off when you have random battles that require you to move things into a cutscene right before it happens. All told, you end up having to rely on creating a suitably creepy atmosphere, which can be much more challenging than using the tactics mentioned above. One of the few games that managed to pull off this combination of genres was Parasite Eve.

The basic plot of Parasite Eve is actually moderately laughable. The mitochondria within our cells rebel after  be awakened by an entity known only as Eve, who possesses an opera singer in New York city. Enter Aya Brea, NYPD officer (at 19????). For some reason, she’s immune to the mitochondrial attacks, and has to deal with all this shit. Strange as it sounds, it is a decently told tale, with a mystery element added in there. But really, you’re in it for the atmosphere, and the game doesn’t shy away from gory deaths, which only contributes to the dark atmosphere.

The characters are… okay. Aya is really stoic, but that makes sense, since she’s been through a tough life. It would make sense that she’s got some issues. Maeda plays the bumbling suitor, whom Aya ignores and the player comes to hate, since he fills your limited inventory space with useless junk. The villain, Eve, is pretty much content to just monologue and laugh menacingly, without much development of her personality or motives. She’s pretty much a giant space tick given a voice, so all she does is say how she wants to destroy humanity… because. The only thing to be said about the characters is that you don’t spend enough time with them for their mediocre development to grate.

What’s really good is the battle system. It’s pretty simple; you have an action bar, which charges up, and when it’s done, you can act, either by attacking an enemy within your weapon’s attack range, or by using items or what amounts to science magic. Until you choose an action, you can move around the battlefield, trying to avoid enemies’ attacks. You get bonus experience for avoiding attacks, so that’s the main point of battles. You do get experience and level up, but the meat of the advancement system is improving your gun. You can increase the attack power with items, give it abilities like acid or firing two bullets a round, or remove a feature from it and graft it onto another weapon. It makes for an entertaining system where you have to figure out how to get the most out of the weapons you find along the way.

This game does have excellent replay value. Its new game plus features slightly stronger enemies, returns to you your favorite weapon from the first playthrough, and contains an enormous optional area with strong enemies and equipment to be found inside. Still, even with that, it’s a short game, and so the overall rating is “decreasing marginal entertainment after the second playthrough.”

When I look at all the stats, it’s really not a terribly impressive game. It did good on a few specific tasks, like making a truly creepy RPG, and having a good weapon creation mechanic, but it failed in the area of deep story or characters. Unfortunately, the bad slightly outweighs the good, and it’s only getting a 7.0 out of 10 from me. It’s got an appropriate difficulty, but there’s just not enough here to make it more than a mediocre game.

Quick Tip: Shooting more bullets per action is not necessarily better. Each increase in the number of bullets fired by a gun decreases the damage per bullet. Plus shooting a lot of bullets takes long enough that you won’t be able to dodge easily. Around two or three is good.

Fun Fact: Parasite Eve (the game) was essentially a sequel to the novel by the same title, written by Hideaki Sena. Not many games come out that are based on a book, though a movie was also produced about a year before the game.

If you enjoyed this game, you might also want to try one of these games. Vagrant Story doesn’t feature the same ability to dodge enemies, but its real-time combat engine is quite similar. Shadow Hearts is another good example of the rare horror RPG, and a good one at that. Dark Cloud 2 is another game with a good weapon customization system. I haven’t yet played Parasite Eve II, so I don’t know if it lives up to the first game.

Skies of Arcadia: Legends Review

So, some of you may have been curious about the game Skies of Arcadia (Eternal Arcadia in Japan) since I mentioned it in my little history lesson a month ago. Well, since I’ve got nothing better to do right now, I guess I’ll go into one of the few RPGs that I’ve played but don’t own. This game came out for the Dreamcast originally, but when that system died, it was ported to the Gamecube under the name Skies of Arcadia: Legends. What’s the difference? Well, Legends has some optional bosses, a few more things to discover, and some sidequests. It’s also got a lower random encounter rate, and removes one of the minigames from the original version. I have played both versions, but the Gamecube version is the only one I’ve beaten, so this review is for all intents and purposes about that game.

This game has pretty much the most stereotypical beginning ever. Princess Lei… I mean Fina is flying a small ship, then gets captured by the evil empire. Then a bold group of air pirates, including main character Vyse, save her. Then you get to help Fina with her task, which involves finding mystical artifacts, conveniently color-coded to correspond with the element they represent. Along the way, you’ll end up running into the empire frequently, since they’re bent on world domination. Pretty much standard fare. The world’s kinda cool, but also suffers from the need to mirror real world geography. There’s a Europe-land, an America-land, an Asia-land, and an Arabia-land. Since everything is located on islands floating in the air, airships are a must for navigation, and the game does a good job of making navigation interesting and fun. Since airships are not limited by being on a single plane, they can move in three dimensions, which allows you to get to all sorts of interesting places. It’s not too hard to find where you’re supposed to go, eventually. Even when you get lost though, you can still find discoveries, which are essentially curious sites with a little blurb written about them. These offer some inconsequential but still interesting background to the world.

The characters in this game are charming enough, but they’re no great literary protagonists. I’ve already covered Vyse, so I think I’ll mention Gilder, who’s an experienced air pirate with tons of tricks up his sleeve. He’s not cynical, like a lot of characters who play a similar role would be, which is refreshing, even though it means that there really isn’t much in the way of realistic (as opposed to idealistic) characterization in this game. Fina is pretty boring, being your typical quiet and compassionate healer chick. In stark contrast, Aika is a fireball tomboy, who has a high level of energy that makes more compelling as a female lead. The villains are mostly mediocre, falling into the typical array. The smart one, the honorable one, the dumb one, and the female one. Seriously, that’s about it. They play their parts to a T at least. The main villain is suitably scheming, and so is basically adequate. In the end, the characters are not sophisticated, but they serve their purpose quite well, and make for characters that you like, if not for any particularly compelling reason.

There’s nothing amazingly innovative about the normal combat system in Skies of Arcadia. The encounters, they are random. You enter commands, and then they are carried out in order of the speed of the characters involved. You do have the spirit point gauge, which recharges every turn by a set amount, and serves as the party’s power source for special moves. Also, you can change weapons’ element attributes at will. The elemental affinities don’t do much in battle, but they influence how you learn spells. When you finish a battle, each character is awarded experience points to each of the elements proportional to the number of weapons there were of that element when the battle ended. So, if there are two red weapons, a silver weapon, and a yellow weapon, you would get double red experience, silver experience, yellow experience, but no green experience. After a certain amount of experience, you learn the next spell of an element.

There are also ship battles, which follow some of the basic rules of normal combat. There’s still a form of the spirit gauge, which limits what actions you can take. Each character can be assigned to a specific time slot with a specific action, like evasive maneuvers or firing one of the cannons. The enemy ship does likewise, and so you tend to end up with a rock-paper-scissors arrangement, trying to figure out what your enemy is going to do, and using the obvious counter method. There are certain actions that can only be performed at specific times, like firing the harpoon cannon. Getting these situations to pop up requires you to choose the correct response when a strategy dialogue occurs. And since the amount of damage that you deal with the super weapon du jour is so high, ship battles boil down to waiting to fire the big one.

For replay value, I got nothing. No real customization options, no new game plus, no unlockable extras. Maybe if you missed something the first time around, but this game isn’t particularly unforgiving about when you get things done. So, this is what I’d rate as a “nothing more to see here, move along,” game for replays.

Well, what more can I say? No one aspect shines, and yet it’s a comfortable game to play. It’s easy some of the time, and quite hard at other points. The story is engaging, even though you look back on it and think “Wow, that sounds like a lot of pointless running around.” Frankly, I think this game is greater than the sum of its parts, which is why I give it a 8.7 out of 10. It’s got a large number of sidequests and optional bosses, and a number of fun characters.

How I Broke Game: So, for one of the optional bosses, the guy with the cat robot, I found an AI glitch for his minions. One of the two types has a healing move which it will use when an ally is at low health. I found that if there were two of the healing type and one of the other type, and both healers were wounded, they would accidentally heal the non-healer, so long as he was between the two. It was silly, and allowed me to beat the boss without using the super move that uses the entire spirit gauge.

Quick Tip: When you get silver magic, make sure to work on improving it quickly. The first resurrection spell you get from this progression doesn’t work 100% of the time, so you really need to get the better version ASAP.

If you enjoyed this game, you might have fun with one of these games. Tales of Symphonia is an all-around fun game, and shares a lot of the light-hearted appeal of this game. Grandia is another game which is all about exploring the world and adventure, without any of this silly angst that you see in other RPGs. Final Fantasy VII’s materia

 system is about the closest thing to the magic system in Skies of Arcadia, so if you liked that aspect of the game it might be worth a shot.

Jade Cocoon: Story of the Tamamayu Review

Whenever there’s a major trend, there are bound to be people who jump on the bandwagon. This was certainly the case with the Playstation, which had its fair share of RPGs that were shot out in response to the realization that the American audience could be convinced to buy them. A lot of these games fell by the wayside, but that’s no reason to avoid them. Jade Cocoon: Story of the Tamamayu was not only involved in the general RPG boom, it also participated in the monster catcher boom sparked by Pokémon. That’s twice the audience, right? Well, maybe… let’s not get our hopes up too high.

The story, artfully expounded in the dazzling opening cinematic, runs in the traditional, somewhat cliché vein of many such games. People live in a world populated by dangerous monsters, but the monsters can be tamed, your father was a great tamer until he disappeared, now you can follow in his footsteps, yadayadyada. What’s a bit more interesting is the darker tone that is added to this mundane premise. Take for example the fact that your character and his young bride are essentially pariah in your little village. Supposedly. You don’t get much chance to interact with the rest of the village in the game, so it’s mostly taken out of the manual. However, add in that each monster you catch forces your wife to take on its pain and you’ve got some nice dark tones for a not usually dark genre. Unfortunately, the game is ridiculously short, and so the plot elements aren’t really developed much. It really doesn’t feel like the game reaches a conclusion, just an end. Too bad.

The characters are… bland. The main man, Levant, is a classic silent protagonist with not much development. His wife Mahbu displays a few tomboyish tendencies, but not really. Even the vain trickster spirit Kikinak falls flat some of the time, and he’s by far one of the most interesting characters. The game seems mostly interested in exploring introspection on the nature of man’s interaction with nature than some kind of good and evil, and that trend is mostly carried by the dialogue of the characters.

The set-up of the game is pretty simple. You go from four base in the village to one of the forests, which consists of a specific three dimensional map with slightly randomized monsters at various locations. You navigate the map until you reach the boss area, picking up items and capturing monsters along the way. It’s kinda cool that Levant actually fights monsters himself, and for the first little bit of the game, he’ll be your strongest character. That doesn’t last long though, and you’ll have to catch some monsters sooner or later. Monster catching is almost exactly like Pokémon; you weaken the monster to low hp, then throw a cocoon at it and play music to try and capture it. You only get a limited number of cocoons each trip to the forest, so that’s a little different.

Probably the coolest part of the game is the way you can combine monsters. Each monster has an element, fire water wind earth, and a number of special abilities and spells tied to that element. You can combine two monsters with different elements, gaining one that has half of the maximum capacity in each of the original elements, and all of the spells or abilities. The order that you combine them is important, as some abilities are tied to physical features that may not be present in a new form. The way the monster looks is basically a combination of the two monsters you fused, with pretty good detail. For example, mix a blue dragon-like monster with a rainbow dragonfly monster and you might get a rainbow dragon with dragonfly wings.

This game doesn't really have much replay value. You don’t get anything new, and though there are quite a few ways you can make up your monster team, you don’t really need to start all over just to make new monsters. You can take on the Endless Corridor, but that’s all it is; an endless dungeon with no actual story attached to it, just monster catching. It’s pretty much just “Too short a game all-told with not enough features to lengthen playtime.” Oh well. Fortunately, it is pretty much a bargain bin game to begin with.

This guy just wasn’t that great. There were some cool ideas, and an interesting monster combination system, but the game was too short and too simple to make it worthy of much attention. It gets the pretty low rating of 6.8 out of 10. Think of that like a 1.8 out of 5, and you see the problem. It’s too bad, since it’s not actually a poorly made game. Quite the contrary. It just seems they spent the development budget in areas other than the script, and so were left with a game that had a decent script that was really short.

Quick Tip: Your monsters get healed slightly at the end of every battle. So, if you’ve got a monster who’s hurting, give him a break for a while, and he’ll recover eventually.

Fun Fact: A studio Ghibli character designer worked on Jade Cocoon, as you can sort of tell from the opening.

If you liked this game, then you might want to take a look at some of the following games. Jade Cocoon 2 is the sequel to this game, and though it doesn’t have as cool a monster creation system, it has some great references to this game, and it’s a much better game overall. Azure Dreams is the same premise, but with a totally different system that’s quite fun to play around with. And, of course, any of the main series of Pokémon games are a good choice, since they’re all great monster catchers, though they don’t have much of a story to go with their longer playtime.

RPG History

So, I guess to start out, I haven’t exactly been the best about updating on time, or even at all, in the past few weeks. For this reason, I’m officially switching over to a biweekly update schedule. Hopefully this will mean a consistent rate of updates. And, if I build up a sufficient buffer of completed games and reviews, I might switch back. Who knows? But for now, I’m going to do a special about the eras of RPGs, at least so far as I know them.

In the beginning, there was Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. No, seriously. That is what most early RPGs were based on, at least in concept. Before the NES was released, most RPGs were personal computer affairs. I dub this era the Stone Age of RPGs. Basically, it’s prehistoric. I don’t know much about stuff that happened during this era. Well before my time.

On the NES, several RPGs were released. While they were technically unsophisticated, and involved copious amounts of grinding with very little in the way of plot, they were a start. Systems were simple. Level up, deal more damage, gain spells that heal or do more damage than a normal attack. Plots were likewise pretty cookie cutter. Play the self-insert faceless protagonist and quest at the behest of kings and prophets and whatever. Games like Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy set up some of the conventions that would mark the genre, while still retaining some of that olde timey speech and general approach reminiscent of previous text based adventures. This era is the Bronze Age. If you’re thinking in terms of comics, that might seem weird, but the bronze age was the historical period when the most rudimentary tools and technologies were first introduced, and the first civilizations began to flourish. Likewise, in the Bronze Age of RPGs, the first longstanding series originated, updating even more primitive game systems in the process. Again, this is an era I know little about, since it too is before my time (but not by very much). The preferred console for RPGs was… well, actually, it was still pretty much the PC, but no longer by default.

And then came the SNES and contemporaneous systems. With the 16 bit processing, the possibilities for RPGs suddenly exploded. With the better graphics, more expression could be added to NPCs and PCs, and the JRPG was born. Basically, the JRPG focused on generating a coherent and developed story over allowing the player to fully determine how they would respond to each development in the plot. This decision meant that stories could become more grandiose. Since the writers were no longer bound to write a multitude of dialogue for each scenario, they could focus more time on making plots complex and compelling. With multiple character portraits possible for important characters, emotional details were much easier to convey than ever before. It was during this era that several series got their beginnings, like the Tales series with Tales of Phantasia and Breath of Fire. Plots began to explore some deeply problematic theological, philosophical, and political issues, and there was a sense that each new story was groundbreakingly original. In a sense, they were, since there were few games that had sophisticated storylines up to this point. In that respect, this represents the Golden Age of RPGs, because it was the first time the genre came into its own and was something more than a tiny niche market. In retrospect, the console of choice for this era was the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. However, at the time, there was significant competition from the Sega CD add-on to the Genesis. Some of the series that landed on the ill-fated Sega system simply died, while others struggled on by being ported to another system. While I don't have really any direct experience with this era, so many of these games are classics that have been remade that I can claim a certain familiarity.

Well, for better or worse, Final Fantasy VII came out for Sony’s first video game console, the Playstation.  This one game pretty much changed the industry, for some reason. An incredibly successful marketing campaign has something to do with it, but it deserves mention that it was an exceptional game. Whatever the reason, the Silver Age of RPGs had dawned. Gone were the sparkly-eyed protagonists, full of energy and adventurous spirit. Gone were the bright, sometimes garish tones of the previous age. In their place, games focused on tormented heroes who had dealt with real hardship. Worlds became grittier, and villains became more evil, though occasionally less complex. Battle systems in this era became streamlined, with far fewer unique effects to be found on accessories and fewer unbalanced and exploitable elements. To compensate, many games became easier, requiring less level grinding. Games also became far longer. A good length RPG went from being 30 hours to be 60+ hours, and often required multiple game discs. Apart from the abovementioned example, some important series began during this era. The Persona series had its first entry (Persona) during this era, while the Suikoden series had origins straddling the divide between the this era and the previous one (Suikoden did come out before FFVII). The console of choice shifted dramatically to the Playstation. Not only did it gain the highly profitable Final Fantasy series, most other RPG developers released their new games for the system. Even some of the games for the less successful Sega systems saw new life on the PS, giving them a broader audience. Not all games followed the darker mold that typified the era, as there were quite a few that were throwbacks to an earlier time. This probably has something to do with the re-release of several classics from the previous console generation, on both sides of the console war.

It would be quite nice to say that the Playstation 2 with Final Fantasy X was when the next era started, but it’s a little bit before that. Things started to get rolling with Final Fantasy IX, but really, Dreamcast titles like Skies of Arcadia mark the truer beginnings of this era. Departing from comic conventions, I’m going to call this era the Pastel Age. With the rise in popularity of Japanese anime abroad, anime-style graphics quickly became the easiest way to sell an RPG. Plots took a dramatic 180 degree turn from the previous era, and once again focused on enthusiastic, adventurous sorts. However, with the classic plot elements firmly entrenched in gamers’ psyches, parody started to become quite prevalent in the scripts of games of this time period. Colors drifted away from browns and olives and towards pale oranges and blues. Despite beginning on the Dreamcast, the PS2 quickly became the console of choice when the Dreamcast foundered. A truly staggering number of RPGs came out for the PS2 during this era. Some significant series include the Disgaea series (Disgaea: Hour of Darkness) and the Dark Chronicle series (Dark Cloud), both of which displayed anime style graphics and a light-hearted if slightly tongue-in-cheek take on the RPG genre. This is the era that I started playing RPGs during, though I took time out to go back and look at older games pretty early on. It also deserves mention that WRPGs were beginning to make themselves known again, and some highly significant ones were coming out on both the PS2 and the Xbox.

This era has mostly run its course, but I’m really not too sure about what the current era holds. At some point in the future, when I’ve got money and time to look into RPGs coming out right now and even a year or two ago, I’ll write about this current era. Maybe this is the Indie Age, where independent games are king. Perhaps it’s a Dark Age, with lots of grimdark settings and suchlike. Possibly it’s some sort of Dragon Age.

Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete Review

It occurs to me that I might want to save some of those Playstation classics to review later on.... Nah, I think I’m just going to keep right on trucking. So, pointless rambling down, I’m going to make some enemies in this review. The game is Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete. I love this game. Then again, I really enjoyed shitty games like Ephemeral Fantasia, so I guess that doesn’t mean much. Anyhow, the follow-up to Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete had to be pretty impressive, since the first game was such a genuinely well-crafted project. Let’s dive back into the world of Lunar and look at what this sequel is all about.

The game is all about the adventures of the aptly named Hiro (naturally, this isn’t much of a pun in Japanese.) Hiro is a young man with a curious streak a mile long. The first thing we see him doing, stealing a jewel from an ancient ruin, shows that personality trait pretty well. Anyhow, one day, Hiro sees a strange light strike the mysterious Blue Spire. After making his way to the top, he meets a beautiful young woman who warns him that his world is in terrible danger from the ancient evil Zophar. Zophar strikes the girl Lucia down, and it’s up to Hiro to save both her and the world. Hilarity ensues. Compared to the first game, which had a relatively light-hearted plot, this one’s got a lot more darkness right up front. However, one of the cool things about the first Lunar game was precisely that it didn’t start a journey to save the world, and the villains were quite sympathetic. Lunar 2, by comparison, comes off as a little bit more clichéd. However, I will say that what it lacks in originality, it does manage to make up for with solid political intrigue and intriguing scenarios.

The characters of Lunar 2 are really pretty much all excellent. Hiro’s on the Top 10 RPG guys list, so I’ll skip him. Ronfar is a hard-drinking gambling priest, which I suppose is already moderately unconventional, but he also has a serious side, haunted by his past failure to save someone he cared for. Leo starts out as a typical lawful good/stupid who follows his god-given orders with gusto, until he starts to realize that he may have been on the wrong side the whole time. His solution to this conflict of interests is quite novel. Lucia starts off as an ice queen, but slowly starts to lose her analytical side as she learns more of the human world. Ultimately, she’s not terribly original, though it is amusing that she starts off as a super-powerful godling. I’d go on to talk about Jean, but I don’t want to dwell too much on this portion. Suffice to say, the characters are at least decent, and mostly endearing. They tend to add about one layer to a stereotypical character model, which results is slightly non-standard characters. Really, one of the unfortunate lacks is that the ultimate villain is… super unremarkable. He really is just and ancient evil working towards the destruction of all life.

The main combat system of Lunar 2 is basically identical to that used in the first game. You enter all commands at the start of a round, and characters act in order of their speed, with physical attacks requiring you to move up to your enemy first. The equipment still offers some cool tradeoffs, like choosing between a sword with huge attack power but only one attack or a less powerful dagger which grants extra attacks. Mixing things up a bit are the addition of crests. Each character can equip two crests. Crests have effects that range from increased speed, similar to what an accessory might grant, to elemental attack spells. Indeed, that’s the only way to gain access to the lightning elemental spells. What’s mega-cool is that the two crests a character has equipped interact, sometimes giving a boosted or altered effect. For example, equipping one chiro crest increases your speed, but equipping two guarantees that you act first each round. Or in another case, the seal crest normally grants you a spell that prevents an enemy from casting spells, but when combined with the warrior crest, your attack power doubles, but you can’t use any spells or special attacks at all. Experimenting with the various combinations is one of the most enjoyable parts of the game.

Replay value. Huh. Well, after playing through the game twice, I really can’t say that I had any good reason to. You get crests, which are the main method of character customization, at rigidly fixed intervals, so it’s not like you can really change how you set up your character for each dungeon. Basically, the rating is much like the first game. “If you missed something the first time, play the game again if you really need a 100% complete game.” There just isn’t anything that makes a new game particularly worthwhile.

Here’s the part where I’m going to get a little outrage, I suspect. I find that Lunar 2 is actually a better game than Lunar. I mean, the latter has great nostalgic value, and the former suffers from the concept no longer being fresh when it came out, but the sophistication of both the world and the combat system of Lunar 2 is mostly superior to the relatively simple system used in Lunar. As such, I’m giving Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete an 8.7 out of 10. There are some limitations that keep it from being an absolutely outstanding game, like the primarily linear storyline of the first two discs, and the total lack of any minigames or distractions from the normal gameplay. Still, these are minor complaints, and the game as a whole delivers a highly enjoyable, classic RPG experience with a few twists and a lot of fun.

How I Broke Game: Well, this is kind of a stupidly minor one, but the normal max for number of items carried is 20. However, I managed to steal an item and get one as a battle drop when I already had 19, getting me a total of 21. I have no idea why this worked, but it displays fine on the inventory screen, so it shows there’s not a hardwired limit of 20 items.

Quick Tip: When you get to the town that’s burning down (seriously, you’ll know which one this is when you get there) make sure to go all the way back down the other side of the tower dungeon before you proceed to the boss fight at the top. There are a few really useful items awaiting you that are missable, since you cannot return to this dungeon ever.

If you liked this game, maybe you should check out one or more of these games. Um, yeah, if you played Lunar 2 first, you should definitely play Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete, since it is basically the same combat system and has similarly outstanding characters. Since it’s so similar to the first game, basically all of the games I mention for that title will also be interesting to someone who liked this game, so I’ll move on to a few other titles that are fun to fans of the series. Wild Arms is another fun RPG with some great characters, a traditional but still interesting storyline, and a cool world. Disgaea: Hour of Darkness is completely dissimilar in gameplay, since it is a SRPG, but the style of humor is the same, and the characters are fun.

Tales of Symphonia Review

So, it’s about time to take a look at one of those games. The one that brings a hitherto unknown series to the spotlight. It also happens to be one of the few Gamecube RPGs. Strange thing, but for a system that had so few RPGs total, the percentage of really good games is amazingly high. Or maybe it’s not so surprising. After all, I guess marketing an RPG for the PS2 was easier, and so a lot of borderline cases snuck in based on the idea that at least someone would buy it on PS2. Someone like me. Well, enough rambling. Tales of Symphonia review begins now.

The story starts off in a peaceful village school, where our protagonist, Lloyd Irving, continues the grand tradition of brave-but-dumb main characters. His friend, Colette Brunel, is a young girl who has been Chosen to be the savior of the dying world of Sylvarant. To accomplish this she sets out on a journey to revive the elemental spirits and revolutionize, I mean regenerate, the world. About halfway through, you learn that another world exists, that of Tethe’alla, which has its own set of summon spirits. If you’ve played any other Tales games, this plot should be immediately familiar. And, indeed, the foreshadowing in this game makes it such that there really aren’t that many big surprises in the plot. O at least, the big surprises come when the plot element is first foreshadowed, and not when said plot twist actually occurs. For all that, it’s an interesting tale, with plenty of fairly sophisticated issues of prejudice, balance, and redemption mixing it up with the more lighthearted character dynamics.

Good characters have been important in previous Tales games, but Tales of Symphonia features some exceptional personalities. In addition to Lloyd, who is good but dumb, and Colette, who is almost painfully bland (but still somewhat sweet), there are seven other playable characters. Zelos Wilder appears on the Top Ten Cutest RPG Boys list. Sheena Fujibayashi is the game’s resident tsundere ninja, who offers more volatile emotional makeup than Colette, partially due to quite different backstories. And of course there’s tormented-by-his-past Regal Brayant, who pulls out the stops in pretty bad-ass ways. Really, going into the other characters would take up too much time, but it should suffice to say that they are all well-developed and likeable. Really, the latter is the most important thing. You get attached to the characters in Tales of Symphonia, because you can be privy to a number of short skits, which are mostly tangential to the story. These skits involve the characters talking to each other, and give you a good insight into the character’s personalities. Quite apart from the playable characters, many of the ultimate villains are believable and sympathetic. At some instances during the game, you might wonder if you are really fighting for the right side, since the reasons the villains give for their actions are quite compelling.

In a fairly noticeable change from previous games in the series, Tales of Symphonia does not feature any random battles. Instead, you can see enemies on the overworld map or in the dungeons, and avoiding battles is as easy as avoiding touching the enemy. Unfortunately for those people who find random battles annoying, the battles in Tales of Symphonia are actually quite fun. Like in previous installments of the series, you can control one character at a time, and issue orders to the others. The action this time takes place on a 3D stage, though you can only move in two directions: towards and away from your currently targeted enemy. It looks pretty cool, and somehow feels a bit different from a strictly 2D perspective. An added bonus is that it’s actually quite fun to play this game with friends, and because it’s on the Gamecube, you don’t need a rare piece of hardware to play with three other friends (unless you count friends as rare. Or hardware.)

Quite apart from battles, some significant puzzles crop up in this game, and for perhaps the first time, the sorcerer’s ring is properly utilized. In basically every dungeon, you change the function of the sorcerer’s ring from shooting fire to shrinking you, shooting sunlight, or something like shooting even more fire. Naturally, the puzzles related to these changes are complex, and if not overly difficult, at least strong enough to keep your attention.

I may have said that Chrono Trigger invented replay value, but as far as I’m concerned, Tales of Symphonia perfected it. Not only does it have multiple endings, based on which character Lloyd has the closest relationship with, but there’s also a new game plus feature, where your grade accumulated over the course of the game can be spent on carrying various features over into a new game. Each character has two different skill trees, which you can only explore one of each playthrough. There are alternate costumes for all of the characters, and you can’t even come close to getting all of them during one game. The titles, allow you to customize what ability scores characters gain when they level up, which allows you to customize how you play each character in a multitude of ways. You want to make Genis, the squishy mage, into a close combat monster? Well, it’s tough, but you can do it. There are even multiple difficulty settings, which can give you quite a challenge on settings higher than normal. Basically, this game is “maybe not the only game you’ll ever need, but not too far off.”

Obviously, a scale is pointless if you never have an example of both the end-points. I don’t even bother having values less than five, because as far as I’m concerned, no RPG is ever gonna be worse than a mediocre game in the overall scheme of things (oh, the hubris). On the other hand, I can’t ignore problems with an otherwise perfect game. Tales of Symphonia is excellent, and pretty much as close to the perfect game as I’ve played, but I can still imagine that it might be better. It clocks in at 9.9 out of 10. The story, while quite good, is a little heavy-handed with the foreshadowing, and isn’t hugely original. But it’s enjoyable, so that’s not the main issue. The biggest gripe I have with the game is that none of the “minigames” are even remotely fun. Button pressing minigames all, and not even particularly sophisticated ones. Basically, if there were even one solid minigame that I would want to play more than once, I might be able to assign that perfect score.

Fun Fact: In Japan, they released a PS2 version of this game. It had a few extra costumes for characters, but was mostly the same. But, of course, they never decided to bring this game stateside.

Quick Tip: If you want to end up with anyone besides Colette at the end, focus all you attention on the one character you choose. Colette’s starting affection is very high, and basically anything you do will increase it.

If you liked this game, you might want to try some of these games. Tales of Destiny II and/or Tales of the Abyss are very good, and have many significant similarities with Tales of Symphonia. Wild Arms 3, for some reason, has a similar feel, and has a comparable amount of optional material to complete. Star Ocean: The Second Story was made by many people who had worked on the Tales series, and it shows in the relationship systems, the Action RPG battles, and to some small degree in the storylines.

Super Smash Brothers Brawl Review

I’m a huge fan of crossover, so it comes naturally that I would play a JRPG that focuses on this. Super Smash Brothers: Brawl features characters from a number of different games, a few of which aren’t even RPGs. I’ve been excited about reviewing this game for quite a while, so I’m just going to dive right in.

The story of Brawl starts with Mario and Kirby having a friendly competition. However, a weird airship shows up and spawns these purple thingies that start attacking. From there an epic quest begins to find the source of the seemingly unending swarm of shadowy creatures. One cool thing is that there’s next to no spoken dialogue in the whole game, which leads to a pretty unique style of storytelling. Overall, it’s a pretty good story, with lots of surprising twists, and a staggering number of characters.

The characters in Brawl, though they may hail from a large number of different games originally, are portrayed quite well. Not having played all of the games that they’re originally from, I don’t know for sure if they’re portrayed faithfully, but at least their interactions in this game are believable. King Deedeedee is an ambiguous enemy who actually manages to pull off a surprisingly authentic heel/face turn. Zero Suit Samus is a great strong female character who, refreshingly, isn’t some kind of sex symbol at all. Fox is a nice stand-offish character who actually ends up being pretty sympathetic. The only problem is that the characters are broken up into strict tiers of usefulness, where a character in a lower tier, like Metaknight, is strictly worse than a higher tier character, like Ganandorf. You can still have fun playing as a worse character, but the game obviously wasn’t meant to be balanced.

The battle system in Brawl is an action RPG type of thing. Each character has a number of normal attacks, which can be performed by pressing the “a” button and a direction. If you press the directional button and the “a” button at exactly the same time, you get a smash attack that is better in every situation. This takes a lot of practice, but it is worth it. Each character also has special attacks, which are triggered by pressing the “b” button and a direction. Most characters can perform a double jump, and a few characters, like Jigglypuff, can fly. You explore a mazelike set of rooms in two dimensions, height and length. Enemies appear on the overworld map, so no random battles. There are segues to boss fights, but that’s all that breaks up the action.

The only place where this game falls flat are the graphics. When it came out like three years ago, the graphics were pretty good, but that was like, three years ago. When you compare it to new games like Call of Duty: Black Ops, or Dragon Age II, it’s really kind of shitty. So, yeah, the level of realism in the graphics didn’t seem like a big deal then, but looking back on it now, it really decreases my enjoyment of the game.

The main story has a number of branches to it, based on which characters you choose to control/save, and a number of optional characters who can be pretty hard to find the first time through. You can even customize your characters by attaching stickers to them, which gives you a number of different ways to play the game. There’s even a couple of minigames to extend the playtime. The target hitting minigame is pretty fun, but the fighting game one is pretty bad. No one wants to play a fighting game with characters from tons of awesome games, so I don’t even know why they bothered to include this one. Anyway, the replay value on this game is “two should get you all of the story segments.”

The overall rating on this game is a painful place to go. I really want to give this game a high rating, because I think it’s a lot of fun. I still enjoy playing it, even if I’ve beaten it about two or three times. But, those graphics… Okay, if it had better graphics, I suppose I would give this game a 9.1. But, given the graphics as they are, 2.6. Really, in the world of RPGs, graphics are the most important feature. That’s why no one wants to play RPGs that came out even last year, because the new ones have much better graphics.

Fun Fact: If you get Mr. Resetti before you’ve reset the game even once, you get a different conversation.

How I Broke Game: So, apparently while you’re using Metaknight’s “b”-down attack to teleport, if you mash up on the “c”-stick quickly enough, you can stay in the teleporting mode indefinitely, and continue moving. This is pretty much only good for committing suicide, considering that Metaknight is such a shitty character to begin with, but it’s a fun little glitch.

If you enjoyed this game, you might want to try some of these other games. Tales of Symphonia has a pretty similar control scheme to this game, and an equally good story. Paper Mario and Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, also play with the silent characters trope, though mostly just with Mario. And, of course, Call of Duty: Black Ops has much better graphics, so you’ll obviously like it a lot more. Super Smash Brothers: Melee, the predecessor, is also a good choice, though going from Brawl to Melee is a jarring shift, as the former is a much faster paced game than the latter.

Wild Arms 5 Review

So, we come to the end of Wild Arms. Yeah, there are a few spin-offs, and some sketchy accounts of a sixth game, but it really ends with Wild Arms 5 (The Vth Vanguard). Now, if you’d been playing them like I did, you’d be totally hooked by now. So I might be a bit more biased than usual with this one. That said, I still intend to give this game a fair score, even if that means remembering the things that were not so good about it.

Wild Arms 5 is the story of Dean, who wants to be an adventuring archeologist. Basically, as he’s exploring near his hometown, a weird something or other falls from the sky, nearly crushes him, and a hot chick pops out. What’s rather interesting is that the plot does not then become saving the world. Or, it does, but not saving it from destruction. No, we’re saving the world from racism! Corny as it sounds, it’s not too bad. Then again, it lives up to being pretty corny too. I guess I’m saying it’s so-so.

The characters in this game are okay, but not great. Dean is a stupid idealist hero, which is more annoying than anything else. His childhood friend Rebecca is much more likeable, being grounded and yet still a little naïve. Avril, the girl from the sky, is a classic ice queen, and yeah, that’s not so great. Greg, the revenge seeking maverick dude, is moderately cynical, but really, not enough to make up for the naivety of the entire rest of the party. They’re all voice-acted, which is mostly okay, except Carol, the loli, has the most annoying voice ever. Have any American games ever had a good loli voice?

Battles in this game are pretty similar to those in 4, but in this game, classes are something that you can move around. Basically, your summon medium is you class, with similar leveraging capabilities based on your accumulated levels as in 4. With a three member battle party, and a total party size of six, you end up with a moderate amount of redundancy in classes. Still, they’re varied enough that you will want to use all six of the classes when you get them. And, while any character can be any class, the special abilities of certain characters lend themselves to certain classes. For example, Dean does a lot of extra damage on critical hits, so having him be the physical attacker makes sense. Also, while the normal hex pattern returns for random battles, in boss battles, the battle space is frequently deformed. There are always seven hexes, but they might be arrayed in a straight line, or with a bottle neck of one hex separating two groups of three. It makes strategy more interesting, but frequently makes boss battles a little easier.

Puzzles in this game take two forms. There’s the puzzle boxes, which are essentially identical to those found in 3, and there’s the dungeon puzzles. Instead of each character having tools, or finding tools lying around, Dean’s gun can equip different ammos that do stuff, like freezing or grappling onto something or whatever. That’s about it for differences, the puzzles are mostly decent, with a few really hard ones and a number of moderately easy ones.

The replay value on this game is not particularly high. You can customize your characters well enough with the mediums, but you only get them gradually over the course of the game, so it’s not much to look forward to. Plus, this game is easy. You can get to the maximum level with little difficulty, spend those levels away for items at a particular shop, and bounce back up in no time. There are a few tough fights, but nothing to get excited about. Pretty much a case of “sure, you can try again if you want to troll the game by purposefully using sub-optimal combinations, but why bother?”

The overall rating on the game. Well, yeah, the battle system works pretty well, the characters are mostly decent, the story’s… okay, not a lot super special. I’d say that the most important thing about this game is that it is fraught with references to the previous games. Cameos of previous playable characters, bosses, even alternate costumes for the main characters. It’s not going to influence you if you haven’t played the rest of the series, but if you have, it’s excellent fan service. Okay, enough on that tangent, the rating is 8.3. It’s a solid, fun game, but nothing too exceptional. A good end to the series, but not the best game out there.

Fun Fact: All but one of the playable characters in previous Wild Arms games (including Alter Code: F) make cameos in wild Arms 5. Even the characters who only join your party temporarily. Who’s missing? Well, I’ll give those of you in the know a hint. It’s one of the characters from Wild Arms 2.

Quick Tip: There’s an accessory that will let you know with a tone when you move onto a hex that will have a treasure at the end of the battle. Find these immediately when you enter a boss battle. It’s usually well worth it.

If you enjoyed this game, you might like one of the following games. Well, pretty much the entire Wild Arms  series, honestly. Those cameos will start to make sense as you play through the series backwards I guess. Disgaea: Hour of Darkness and Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories have some great puzzle action, as well as grid-based combat. For no particularly good reason, Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King might be fun, because it has a similar exploration vibe to it, and equipment utilization can be fun to balance.

Wild Arms 4 Review

 

So, you know what I said about striking a balance between staying true to the previous games in a series and bringing new mechanics to a series? Well, Wild Arms 4 (The 4^th Detonator) goes pretty far to the new end of the scale. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, just be prepared for a lot of explanations. After all, a series can’t just recycle the same old stuff or it would get pretty boring.

The story of Wild Arms 4 starts off in an idyllic little town, following the adventures of Jude, an energetic young boy with a taste for adventure. Pretty soon, the sky cracks open, and a bunch of military forces invade the town. By using a powerful gun, Jude is able to escape, but is left completely lost on the world below, hounded by the military forces who invaded his home. Hilarity ensues. Yeah, not too much to go on here, but at least it’s not a mission based storyline. The story definitely isn’t the main draw of this game.

I wish I could say that the characters are that main draw, but it’s only half true. Arnaud, who you may recognize from our cutest boys feature, is a high note, but his girlfriend Raquel, is impressive too. She wields a massive sword, is the main tank, and has to deal with some very sobering problems about her own mortality, and yet somehow manages to be moderately upbeat. On the other hand, Jude is pretty bland, being an impetuous brat and all, and Yulie is just another dumb healer chick. Oops! I almost forgot to mention this is the first game in the series to feature American voice acting. This is… not exactly a good thing. Listening to Jude shout and grunt while running around the map is moderately amusing, but it gets old fast. None of the main voice cast is particularly bad, but I’m not sure that it adds much to the game.

I suppose the most impressive feature of the game is the completely overhauled combat system. Instead of lining up, or even running free-form around the battlefield like in previous games, you fight it out on a hex-grid with six hexes placed around a seventh central hex. Instead of targeting individual enemies or allies, you simply target a hex, and anyone in that hex gets targeted by the effect. For example, status effects are targeted on hexes, so all you have to do to avoid poisoning is move to another hex, which uses up you turn. Enemies and allies can’t occupy the same hex, but enemies get the same benefits you do, so it’s usually not a good idea to have all your eggs in one basket, so to speak. Other additions include the class system, where everyone has their own class, and gets abilities as they gain levels. You can see every ability you’re going to get, and you can even leverage yourself up to get abilities that are higher than your level, at the temporary cost of max hp. It’s a neat system, but customization is somewhat lacking.

Puzzles in this game are handled rather differently than in any of the other games in the series. For starters, you don’t have any tools built-in. Instead, you’ll find the tools necessary to solve puzzles just lying around somewhere nearby. While this might make it seem too easy, since the game is basically telling you what tool you need for the job, there are several out of the way puzzles where you’ll need to carry a tool from several rooms away. Also added to this game are the ability to jump, slide, and slow down time, which adds a certain amount of platforming action to the puzzling. It’s a nice touch, and you’ll even get a sidescrolling minigame to test your skills.

This is about where I get around to replay value. This is going to be a short paragraph. Rating: “Nil.” Linear story, basically no customization opportunities, and no new game plus features.

Getting right down to it, this wasn’t exactly the most stellar title in the series. It did some interesting things with the battle system, and had some refinements on the leveling and puzzle systems, but really, most of the material was underwhelming. It gets about 7.7 out of 10. It’s not a terrible game by any means, and definitely has its moments, but a lot of its mechanics were not particularly well executed.

Fun Fact: It’s impossible to 100% complete the game in the American version, so don’t bother trying. Two enemies were taken out of the game, but not the monster list.

Quick Tip: If possible, split up your team so they take up four hexes before finishing a battle. This increases the likelihood of getting an item drop, some of which can be very good, like the weapon I got for Arnaud that made his attack power comparable to Jude’s.

If you enjoyed this game, you should give one of these games a try. Wild Arms 5 is the only other game in the series to share the hex-based battle system. Wild Arms Alter Code: F on the other hand, has carry-over data for this game, so if possible, you should complete it before playing Wild Arms 4. I guess Star Ocean: Til the End of Time has a somewhat similar style of story-telling, though it’s more action oriented. Honestly, you might find that a full-on SRPG like Disgaea: Hour of Darkness floats your boat pretty well, considering that the Wild Arms series ended up going off into the strategy genre after the main series was completed, and this was the game that started things going in that direction.

Wild Arms 3 Review

You know, I think I’d never played the third game in a series after having played the previous games before. Playing the second after the first, yes. Quite frequently. But not the third, with the exception of Wild Arms 3 (Advanced Third). Perhaps this is a function of the fact that few games make it to a third installment. Once you get a third game, you can start to make claims at being a real, ongoing series. Perhaps it’s our obsession with the power of three. In any case, a third game is an exciting game for any fans of the series. Wild Arms 3 is no exception, so let’s get right down to it.

The game starts off with the now familiar split prologues for each of the main characters. Virginia is a strong girl of 18 who’s looking for his long-lost father, following in his footsteps as a drifter. Gallows is a lazy guy trying to avoid his duties as the latest in a long line of shamans. Clive is a sniping bounty hunter who has to deal with the loss of his mentor/father-in-law. Finally, Jet is a cold guy, who suffers from amnesia. They’re not 100% original, but they’re what you’ve got. You’ll end up pretty attached to them after a few battles.

Battles in Wild Arms 3 follow some of the basic conventions of the previous games. You enter commands at the beginning of each round, and act in order of speeds. Also, like in the second game, though battles are random, you can skip them at the press of a button. However, you can only do this a certain number of times before resting. Another thing that has changed is that you don’t have any equipment besides your gun. You upgrade your guns, adding to the max bullets or  increasing the attack power. For other types of abilities, you have a different system. You put accessories on your mediums, which grants that medium a personal skill.  You can then move the mediums from one ally to the next. This allows for a good amount of customization. Unfortunately, once you attach a skill, that’s it, unless you want to delete it entirely. So, if you accidentally attach a unique skill to a medium you find doesn’t synergize the way you’d like, you just have to deal with it.

The story is pretty traditional, going back to the basics of the first game. You gain the ability to wield the guardian’s powers in battle, and journey to halt or reverse the environmental decay that plagues the world. You discover that there’s an ancient conspiracy that involves great evils. The form is pretty standard, but the details are actually pretty surprising. The surprise is augmented by the game’s multiple openings, which change depending on how far into the game you’ve progressed.

Puzzles continue to be one of the high points of the series, and take much the same form as in previous games. Each character has tools, and those tools allow you to do various things, like freeze objects or travel rapidly in a straight line. Making its first appearance in the series are the puzzle boxes, side quests which have nothing to do with the main plot, but everything to do with making challenging puzzles. Essentially, you have to line up two or more of the same color blocks, which makes them disappear. Disappear all of the blocks, and you get a prize the first time. Since you can’t use your tools, the puzzles are pure mindbenders.

Replay value on this one is pretty tough. There are some extras you can unlock at the end of the game by completing certain tasks. There are also a fair number of ways you can set up your team. Really, I wouldn’t give this game more than “one well-explored play through,” but that’s no negative reflection on the game.

Overall score for this one is easier. It’s a solid game, with lots of good features, solid translation, and a lot of things to explore. No, it doesn’t do anything particularly excellent, except for the puzzles. It gets about 8.4. It’s still not quite as good as the first game, but through no fault of its own. It’s following the formula, and it follows it well, with minimal kinks. One thing is for certain, I’ve noticed that it’s frequently available in used game stores for cheap. I suspect this is because it was overproduced. Whatever the reason, it’s great value for the money.

Quick Tip: Finest Arts is the easiest way to deal a lot of damage. However, to activate it, you need to be out of bullets. Sooo. Give the Finest Arts to a character who doesn’t have a lot of bullets to get rid of. Like Clive.

How I Broke Game: Well, it’s not a particularly impressive set, but I’ve got two minor tales. One is that you can duplicate an item that you only have one of. Some enemies can steal items. If you kill them before they get away, you get the item back. However, if another enemy steals the same item, you get one more over what you had before. Totally useless. The other fun story is that I bypassed an entire puzzle by moving across block diagonally at just the right point.

If you liked this game, you should try one of the following games out. Wild Arms: Alter Code f is the game that is closes in system to this one, and also has a few names and characters you’ll recognize. Grandia II has a little bit of a similar system of skills, and it also takes itself moderately seriously. Dark Cloud 2 has about the closest you’ll get to a western feel in another JRPG, and happens to also have a cell-shaded style and puzzle elements.