Beaten: Fate/Extra

System: PSP
Status: Beaten (on  1/27/13)

My love for the Nasu-verse and all its related properties are no secret to those who know me well, so of course a big reason I even got a PSP was to play this game. The Fate/Stay Night series is one that is so well done in concept and execution in the original visual novel sense, and yet so hard to really translate into a video game. This game does it very well, and it should be commended for basically translating the feel of the original into a new idea entirely.

The basic concept of the game is that you are an amnesiac person in a computer system that runs a tournament to determine who gets the holy grail. You pick one of three possible summoned spirits, and develop that character through trips into the system grinding out levels, while researching your next opponent. The original concept that information tended to be more important than sheer power when fighting for the holy grail actually works out well here. The whole thing is integrated well into the combat system itself.

The combat system is glorified rock paper scissors, with your character getting special attacks to 'cheat' the system at times. Naturally you can only do this so many times, so its not very useful for basic enemies, but is immeasurably useful on fights with other summons. The battle rounds are set up several actions in advance, and most enemies have a pattern that they follow most of the time. The more often you fight a random enemy, or the more research you do on your next opponent in the tournament, the more that is revealed ahead of time. This is invaluable for the boss fights, since for most of them, a few wrong choices can kill you.

Out of combat, the game is heavily based around time. You have so many days to prepare for the fight, and each day there is some clue to find or event to handle in order to research your opponent. This can cause it to be rather stressful, as you worry about going in to the arena to level, since once you do your investigation outside it is finished for the day. It is highly advisable to have multiple saves, as it can be easy to screw yourself out of a clue or screw up a day and not know it till the match.

The replayability is a bit lacking, as other than changing spirits, the story mostly stays the same except for a few choice you can make. I finished it with saber, and started archer but got a bit bored midway, I need to get back to it, finish the two other spirits and the optional boss in the last dungeon.

Daily Review: Monster Hunter Freedom Unite

Daily Review

Monster Hunter Freedom Unite

System: PSP
Status: Unfinished
Currently: Finished 1 Star Gathering Hall, and 1/2 Star Village quests, working through 3 star.

I suppose it is a good thing when I've been playing a game so much and so often over the past week or so, that I've been too busy to do daily reviews of it. That, or I can't resist the call to pick it back up every time I put it down and try to do something else.

The game is for me, unequivocally good. It is at that perfect level of challenging without being cheap or drawing things out too much. It also gives you a very clear work to reward ratio, and you can constantly see your rewards on your character. Even though it is an RPG, the only benefits and gains you get through the game come from killing big nasty beasts, and hacking them up to make new gear for yourself. So when you get that new bow, you know you slaughtered eight wyverns or so to make that damn thing, and you're proud of it. It does induce a bit of grinding, especially if you want to be ahead of the curve on gear somewhat. Right now I'm repeating a quest to kill an Iodrome because its the closest clear upgrade for my armor, though the helm will be a rare drop of the things skull. Next up is slaughtering a Kut-ku to make myself a new crossbow.

The only problem so far with the game is the PSP itself, and the fact that I've gotten it so late I am sure I will never see any of the online only quests, just because no one else is playing it, and none of my friends will get it or a PSP. The latter is rather simple, you can always group up through the game to take down monsters, but some Gathering Hall (aka online group area) quests are more than just higher HP, they're a whole new level I doubt I'll ever be able to solo. Just doing the 1 star quests was a pain, because they require you to kill so many more enemies, and the bosses have so much more HP...for obvious reasons, its designed for up to 4 people. The PSP is the other issue, and that is the noticeable lack of two joysticks...and the tiny little bugger that serves as one. I've mostly overcome the wonky camera controls, I've gotten used to doing little shifts to realign the camera with the 'face forward' button, but if you do want to move and look around at the same time you have to do this awkward claw motion with your hand. I'm already getting a cramp holding the joystick steady in one direction for long, like I did on Peace Walker.

I always manage to gripe more about the little things than rant about the larger things...but sincerely, those two little whimpers are all I have, and all I foresee having. The game is a great challenge, every time I die I know its my fault for getting too greedy, not dodging in time, dodging the wrong way, and the like. Every boss takes skill and timing, and decent gear to back you up though I am sure you could do some of these (and some crazy people have) without any armor. It's like an MMO...except requiring actual skill in combat, instead of clicking the same four buttons.

Daily Review: Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions

Daily Review

Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions

System: PSP
Status: Unfinished
Currently: Near the end of Chapter 1

So yeah, I normally don't buy remakes if I already have the original, usually its not enough changes to spend more money on, but this one is well worth it. Mostly for one reason, and that's the redone translation. Say what you will about the purple prose and overly flowery and British language they go through, it doesn't dip into Dragon Quest "Thee Thou Thine" and it fits the tone...more importantly, it is far, far better than "Dragon casts Ice Bracelet!" that the original game had. That alone should be a reason to get this game even if you have the original.

My only complaint with this one is the slowdown...and it is horrendous, and I have no clue why. The original graphics were not that amazing, and yet the game slows to a dead stop whenever anyone uses any ability beyond basic attacks. Even if it doesn't have a complex animation, the game will sit and think about it for several seconds until it processes it. It doesn't seem to be a graphical issue but a processing issue, like the game has to switch gears to perform anything complex. Still, its not enough to sink the game, just makes the battles take a bit longer (while you watch the chocobo quiver in place preparing to attack).

The game itself is the Final Fantasy Tactics everyone remembers, great depth, a cool job class system, and a game system that is very unforgiving, along with story battles that range from easy to cheap. Yes, you will grind, you will grind very early, since the 4th story mission almost requires you to be 9 levels higher than the enemies to finish it without losing a character. Yes, you can still lose characters, someone keels over, you have three turns to revive them or finish the battle, or they are gone for good. Yes, for some reason protect and other spells that aren't straight up heals can miss outright due to low faith (even raise, which is great when you cast raise to bring a guy back whose death counter is about up...and it misses). Still, the game is never outright unfair. They give you tough challenges, which you can use the job system to beat with enough tactical acumen, and the tutorial actually makes sense now!

Definitely one to pick up if you own a PSP, even if you own the original. More review though as I get through it, now that I can actually understand the story.

Daily Review: Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection

Daily Review

Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection

 Final Fantasy IV

System: PSP
Status: Beaten
Currently: Beat Zeromus, completed Rydia's Trial

Well, that was kind of ruined by the fact that I had to do some more grinding and look up hints online to beat the boss since he was trouncing me rather soundly. Turns out, the major thing I was doing wrong was...I had my battle speed set too high. What? Really? Yes, the boss goes so fast that if you don't have your battle speed set to snail's crawl, the little time it takes you to choose your actions is the difference between him getting two huge attacks off before you can heal or only one. Rather huge difference. I did finally beat him though, but I'll need to go back down with the other characters, but in the meantime I'm in the Lunar Ruins (the post-game dungeon) to do the trials of the characters I unlocked it for. Already finished Rydia's Trial, which was more of a fair challenge than the final boss. I know there's some uber-boss down here, though I've heard two different ways to meet it, so there might be two (random floor spawn and finding all 10 tomes from the trials).

Daily Review: Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection

Daily Review

Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection

 Final Fantasy IV

System: PSP
Status: Unfinished
Currently: I hate grinding.

So, either I'm doing something terribly wrong, or they fiddled with the balance of the final boss. Did all the original optional dungeons (for the various eidolans), plus the new ones on the Mount of Ordeals to get the best weapons for the cast members they now let you switch between. Go to the final dungeon, collect all the best armor and weapons. Go to fight the final boss, and he proceeds to obliterate me rather handily. Check a FAQ, ok, he counterattacks, and you can slow him. Do nothing to provoke counter attack other than the slow, still get obliterated.

I hate grinding, if you have to grind in a game to beat the storyline provided, someone did not do a good enough job balancing the difficulty out. Admittedly, many games I love you -have- to grind in, numerous times, but they usually outweigh that with other measures. Still, it completely breaks the rhythm of the game, you get all geared up to face the final boss, expect a few deaths, and have to spend hours walking back and forth with auto-attack on to get enough HP/Stats to even survive.

While I was looking up how terrible of a gamer I am, I also found out that the game has additional content I didn't realize was there, which is only accessible post-final boss...and only for the characters you beat the final boss with. So in essence, at minimum I have to beat the final boss twice, and the other characters are nowhere near the same level as my current team which means, you guessed it...more grinding!

Hopefully the extra dungeon will be interesting, though doubtlessly will require more grinding to beat the ultimate boss down there. Still, its all for completion.

(Personal style note, stopped listing dates in the blog's title, was looking weird on the RSS feed, instead started titling either as a daily review or 'quickie')

July 13, 2012: Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection

Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection

 Final Fantasy IV

System: PSP
Status: Unfinished
Currently: Finished all pre-final boss sidequests. Going to wipe out Zeromus

Just a quickie before work, finished all the side quests. I can see why people might have wanted to use the other characters instead of the final team you're forced to use in the original, but really, did anyone want to use Edward? He is unequivically useless, he can do nothing that someone else can not do in a much better, more efficient fashion.

July 12, 2012: Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection

Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection

 Final Fantasy IV

System: PSP
Status: Unfinished
Currently: Working through sidequests before the final dungeon.

I suppose its always going to be odd, going back to a game that is so old, and then revisiting a story you've already experienced. To be fair, I've been skimming most of the story. I've seen this before after all, I know where to go, but once I started paying attention again...well...it really doesn't hold up anymore. Weirdly enough, the main characters themselves, the ones who pass through your party, are probably the part that holds up the best...albeit rather one dimensional still. Kain lives up to his biblical namesake and does so many half-explained betrayals it gets rather silly, Rosa loves Cecil end of story, Rydia hates Cecil and Kain, then helps him after one effort to protect her despite him murdering her entire village...ok, even the characters aren't even that well detailed. Hell, some of them seem so eager to remove themselves from your party so you can get a new one in a few moments that they do rather stupid things, ergo "We need to close this gap, lemme jump from the airship with this bomb!" "Oh, I'm alive again later, no explanation!". Practically every character death is reversed at least once (except for the big one which I won't spoil for the five people who haven't played that far), and yet no one seems to react beyond "Personname! You're alive! Let's never mention this again."

The story itself is so bare bones...there's no lead up to anything that happens. Go fight new threat, go here, fight this threat, oh there's other crystals, go get them, sudden large monstrous doomsday weapon, stop it! In such a short game, with the actual final villain not mentioned till about 2 hours till the game is over, its really hard to get any emotion invested in it. Hell, most villains just show up, get killed, and are never mentioned or explained. Elemental archfiends introduce themselves, get offed, get revived later, offed again, with out a single motivation or explanation as to where they came from or why they worked for the current big bad.

This is all probably looking in hindsight, after all, the game previous to this in the Final Fantasy series was...really bare bones, though 2 had a comparatively Star Wars story...too bad the system was trash. I am rather glad we didn't pay a lot for this, and that it comes with two other side games, otherwise I'd have felt a little irked at paying for a game little more than 20 hours long with no real replay value. Will have to see how the other two games in the collection go before any final judgement though.

July 11, 2012: Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection

Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection

 Final Fantasy IV

System: PSP
Status: Unfinished
Currently: Just got Edge, here I come Rubicant!

I'm always a bit wary when I play a remake of a game I've already finished, though Square always seems to do a good job about it...to a degree. I had only played IV back in the old SNES days, and never actually owned it, just rented it from a local store. This of course led to me trying frantically to beat it over the course of a single weekend, getting near the end of it, and due to having rushed (and ran from encounters for a good chunk of the game), I was never powerful enough to finish the game. Still, it always struck me as a well balanced game, no grinding needed to finish out classes, no uber-powerful bosses that you have to spend forever trying to beat (that all came later). If you played through it and fought every random battle, you would be at the perfect level for the final boss to be a challenge, and the few side quests ended you on a still even note.

Memories are always a nice thing though, and playing the remake on the PSP has left me with mixed feelings. For one, the sprite art for both the characters, the world, and the monsters is out and out -beautiful-. It makes me glad I never spent the money on the DS remake, because the chibified 3d images always looked so...blegh. I would rather have well done sprite art than poorly rendered 3d graphics any day. The game still feels very old school, beyond some ease of use changes, though some of those leave me wondering why they didn't do a few more tweaks.

My memory of the old game isn't perfect, so I can't say with 100% certainty...but did the old games really have such a hugely annoying encounter rate? There have been numerous times I've gotten out of one random encounter...and walked right into another, then another, then another. Many times I've had 4 random encounters in a single small room, walking to and from the chest inside. I know random encounters are a fact of life in pretty much any JRPG, but good lord people....put a limiter on these things. Even if the original game didn't, you can make tweaks! It's ok! Up the experience and gold gained from each encounter a bit, make them a tad less frequent, and it will be fine. Being a portable game makes it a bit more forgivable, after all, you can just flick the power button and put it down, so no need to truly rush for a save before work.

The random encounters themselves are....meh. When I found the auto-battle feature, I've pretty much left it on all the time except for the locations where I know it'll get my character killed if I'm not paying attention to who they attack (life drain with undead enemies, etc). Otherwise, I'll take the massive hit to HP from just wailing on enemies automatically, and watch TV for a bit while I wait for it to finish. The battles run a bit faster then anyway, I can turn it off with one button, and using magic and summons really doesn't speed it up that much.

Otherwise, the boss battles are still well done, though when you already know all the tricks and how to beat them and have played so many Final Fantasy games...well...they're rather simple. So far, no one has given me a remote challenge other than having to revive once or twice. Again, I can't state it enough, the sprites are beautiful and well detailed, and the music is typical Final Fantasy fare. I'm chewing through this at a pretty rapid rate, and expect to finish it rather shortly, then I can move on to the two other games on the disc.