Final Fantasy XIII

It's time to review Squeenix's Final Fantasy XIII as depicted by my omen. I have had such mixed thoughts with this title, that it is becoming a trend for me personally after experiencing and beating the experiments called Final Fantasy II and VIII already.

The story is mostly told through the unlimited cut-scenes, but there is also a synopsis of each chapter available plus lore. The terms Cocoon, Pulse, Purge, Focus, l'Cie and fal'Cie are used many times, and while I understood them, the execution of the plot is shallow. Quite simplistic really.

What bothers everyone more, including me, is the absence of towns, a world map or the actual feeling of not being alone in these otherwise bland locations. Interacting with stuff was very largely missing, and the shop system was wrong.

As YouTube reviewer The7thLevel once said, the game plays itself. Well, almost. You walk through linearity for the first 10 chapters for what seems to be a twisted long prologue towards Chapter 11, where you will finally be able to traverse a large map in your own way. NPC's are almost extinct, and I only saw them at Chapter 9 at the earliest.

The only sidequests are missions where you must find special enemies and defeat them, hence, this means more of the same battles. Speaking of which, the battle system comprises of Paradigm Shifts, Auto-Battle, special techniques and most of the time only 1 summon per battle.

Libra, the most common technique, automatically scans weaknesses and adjusts your tactics towards exposing them every time you re-encounter the particular enemy. Auto-Battle then works around doing just that, meaning that you will be pressing a lot of X's only through the whole game.

Paradigm Shifts means that you are able to switch roles between characters, and later on, all of the roles become accessible towards everyone. A Saboteur for example debuffs enemies, while a Ravager chains the Stagger percentage of enemies.

If the Stagger meter is complete, you will deal extra damage. The paradigms are shifted by the use of the L1 button, and customization is normally automated, so are the tactics. Shifting paradigms, building up the stagger meter and healing will be the main things you will be focusing on to drag further.

You are able to manually order the characters around, but why do so when the battles are fast-paced and the Auto-Battle button is there? This creates an ironic moment when you consider the opportunity to do battles manually as well.

But unless you know exactly what you're doing with swift actions, things will get unnecessarily harder. It's better for most of us to stick to the very conventional automatic mode of which I can almost call the Audience Mode instead.

The Crystarium system is similar to the License Board and Sphere Grid from FFXII and FFX, but this time, because of the various paradigms or character roles, each paradigm per character has it's several spheres to be leveled up by the game's CP points.

Sure the graphics are pretty and prettier like the Final Fantasy games are nowadays associated for, but their stories and characters have made a huge fallout for far too long now. The variety is largely missing as sidequests, non-linearity and other extra's are just missing out.

FFXIII is only fightings, cut-scenes and bosses(more fightings). This isn't the epitomy of RPG games Squeenix! They have also always been about exploring their worlds, the plot progessions through overcoming more than just battles and actually caring about what's happening and what is available to do, which hasn't been effective in years.

You still do exploration and still uncover more about the world, but the way it was designed just is by far not as exciting as other RPG's. Ever since part VII, the playable cast has been given more personality because of the graphical capabilities and eventually voice acting as well. XIII's cast isn't the worse that I have experienced, but it's still a long mile for me to get to really care about them, minus Sazh, an odd fellow with a good personality.

Barthandelus, the main antagonist, was convincing with his motivation for empowering the playable cast of XIII and in the end his ultimate goal of destroying Orphan in order to reset the world. Taking on the appearance reminiscent of the pope and talking religiously with his supernatural powers, he was both memorable and a dangerous opponent.

But apart from those two characters and the difference of the swift battles, there isn't much else to hang onto. Some songs such as the battle theme were decent, and bosses became considerably better for being tricky.

Final Fantasy XIII is a mediocre and alienating game to crave momentum from. The overall pace is slow and it wasn't designed with balance in the sense of variety. there was too much emphasis on what was available.

But don't listen to me, because a sequel is already out and another one is coming. Were the global sales towards this entry really that impressive?

Rating: 6.3

Final Fantasy XIII-2

I am able to review the first sequel, so I wonder, what did change? Well, plenty did actually. Quick Time Events, or Cinematic Actions called here and Live Triggers that give you different sentences as a choice like modern Western RPG's tend to do are present now.

You have a way more interactive world for being able to talk with people for real now. The map system has been updated with fog present if you have not located the actual map in an area yet, plus new information such as the locations of Chocobos or a Moogle that accompanies Serah as a morphable weapon, which can scan hidden items or be thrown around for more hidden items.

The story focuses on Lightning's sister this time. Guiding and guarding her will not be Snow, but Noel, a time traveller from a period where he is the only surviving human left. Lightning herself seems to have passed away(The ending of XIII is slightly and quickly altered here in regard to her status), but only the main characters know that she is still somewhere, somehow.

It gets more weird, as space and time have interferred here greatly, not only as 1 time traveller is present, but objects appear and reappear at certain times as well. Plus, creatures seem to be coming from the Void now, a new area. Somehow, I wondered how the story would go further.

Perhaps that would be the first sign of the game having potential, plus I was getting content with the things that have changed around the gameplay aside from the story already. So that's good. However, as I came further, the latter wouldn't hold the momentum much longer.

The story is convoluted involving inconsistent usage of themes such as time travelling, paradoxes, dimensions and deus ex machina's appearing such as Noel. Sure anyone can toy and experiment with stories, but putting this one up above the one established by Final Fantasy XIII already felt just like a huge mess to me.

It is so radically different from what was established in XIII that it doesn't work for me. All those era's, and then the whole time traveling factor, it was a nice try, but in the end is a huge departure from the previous world so to speak.

The soundtrack is noticably different, more upbeat, energetic and perhaps even inappropriate, but it worked for me for the most part. Re-using songs and enemy design from XIII felt lazy, but I will let it slip.

Pre-emptive strikes are executed better here, and it's easier to avoid monsters. Chocobo's are also more accessible and earlier to get, plus this time you can collect and train monsters on your team and level them up in the Crystarium much like the 2 main characters.

Traveling through the different timelines is fresh, but as said before an odd concept after XIII. The order also seemed weird, but alternate timelines are given amongst other topics as explanations. It's nothing exciting like Chrono Trigger, but it does make for a rather different sequel.

Caius as the villain was lame, but atleast had a good motivation for his reasoning. Actually, it goes the same for Noel as well. Serah seemed to take things for granted rather easily, although there are the Live Trigger moments where you can choose the outcomes, sometimes serious, sometimes comical.

Puzzles were also present, and I really liked the clockwork ones. One thing I didn't mention in the previous review is that XIII had save points with not one, but all of the shops available. This was a poor design decision in my opinion and in this game it's replaced by a fellow time traveller called Chocolina, who acts as a merchant, although a strange one.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 is a weird sequel with a dissapointing plot, but it makes up for it with an improved battle system, a more navigational map, entertaining side quests such as the casino area( the chocobo races return!) and if you've got the time, I heard that it has like 8 different paradox endings to get.

Rating: 6.5

It turns out that I will have another month of PS3 reviews because I simply have beaten quite many of them next to these featured in february. I don't know what month it will be, but I do know that they will be published before the summer at the least.

Heavy Rain

Quantic Dream has come up with another interactive video game exclusive towards the Playstation 3 after having success with the unfinished Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy. Called Heavy Rain, it's a thriller story involving 4 playable characters who all play an important part.

Ethan Mars is a lovable husband and father to two gorgeous sons, but is soon separated from both of them. His primary task is to solve the origami related puzzles created by the mysterious Origami Killer, who leaves behind origami figures and orchids on each young victim.

Scott Shelby is a private investigator and an ex-police officer who is professional when it comes to beating up thugs and following leads. He was my favorite of the four because of his personality and just his veteran look in his field of work.

Madison Paige is a journalist who stumbles upon the story surrounding the serial killings and encounters Ethan one day. At first there doesn't seem to be much connections, but sooner or later she too starts getting deeply involved with all of the tensions and she primarily becomes a supportive character, intended with searching for the truth.

Norman Jayden is a hipster FBI agent because of his sunglasses technology called ARI, which is able to track fingerprints, blood trails, tire tracks and more clues towards solving crime scenes. He works together with a jackass for a partner, but atleast most of the time they follow protocols and the law.

Heavy Rain has several endings that show us the fate of each character depending upon the choices you made through the story. Quick Time Events dominate, similar to Fahrenheit but because I was playing with a Sixaxis PS3 controller, the controls were quite different than those found on a keyboard.

I was impressed with the different routes and choices to make, plus the presentation is polished. Heavy raining is a common theme for the game, and the modus operandi and the motivation for the Origami Killer, as revealed near the end, were satisfying to know and made the overall story memorable.

The identity of the killer also came as an unexpected revelation for me, because I did not expect that particular character to be the guilty party. And the voice acting by the way is also wonderfully done, as I learned from the bonus content, 90 actors were used in the end.

It seems that I have catched another glitch as I seem to be stumbling upon them lately in modern times. It happened at the mall scene, where you are supposed to look for Jason. Take a look at Ethan's position, I cannot believe I was able to casually walk around like that: Casually looking for Jason...on thin air.

While Heavy Rain wasn't outstanding with the game mechanics it provides, it does make for a thrilling and different experience combined with the unfolding, rather dramatic plot. Especially the action scenes and the origami challenges were exhilarating.

Rating: 7.9

Catherine

Vincent Brooks has to choose between two women; Katherine has been in a relationship with him for years and now wants to take the next big step, while Catherine represents freedom and flexibility with sexual desires. However, during nights, he experiences horrible nightmares involving weird sheeps and climbing up to the top!

Catherine is an original mixed video game with psychological horror, intimidating timed puzzles, social parts and some questions regarding your own morality. I answered honestly at the confession questions, but I was leaning more towards going for Catherine or the naughty route.

Take heed, Catherine is both the name of the game and the other mysterious girl of the story, representing lust and cuteness and what else going through Vincent's mind. There doesn't seem to be a clear reason for why both female characters sound similar.

So the main course is about living up the nightmares, climbing through towers of blocks in your way towards the next level in order to reach "true freedom" at the end. At the end of every night, which is usually divided into 3 parts, there is a nightmare boss chasing you, not a boss fight.

How do the puzzles work? Well, you push blocks around in order to create stairs or swivel your way around them using the edges in order to reach new ground. As these puzzle stages have a time limit, you will have to think quick before confusingly moving blocks around.

There is an undo button should you mess up once, and between each stage, there are several sheeps walking around on a floating field where they can give you techniques during the puzzle sequences or give you insight into the unfolding mysterious story.

After you reach the top, the game switches over to daytime, and you will be able to socialize with your friends, communicate with your girlfriends and have casual talks with others at your favorite bar while seeing cut-scenes as well, rendered in cell shaded graphics or anime.

While walking around the bar, you are able to do a few things, but the most interesting feature is to play a bonus version from the main game itself. It is called Rapunzel and the difference with it is that time is now infinite, and you are only able to move around blocks for a few times.

Back to the main gameplay, there are different kinds of blocks which stand in your way, Such as ice blocks, trap blocks and bomb blocks. The difficulty of facing these obstacles as well as all of the levels can range from driving you nuts towards driving you even more nuts.

Luckily there are collectable items for you to use, such as making you able to climb up to two blocks, killing off all of the enemies or creating a block. There is a particular sheep that sells you these things too should you have the need.

Catherine is no breezeover. This is a lengthy title only because the puzzles themselves took me sometimes so long to get past before reaching the next part. But I am not alone, Catherine is kicking a lot of asses around. Expect to die often here.

As the story continues to be quite thrilling to follow in the sense of how it will continue regarding Vincent's dilemmas, the nightmares and the mysteries, in retrospect, for me it did have a happy end. Even though I leaned towards Catherine's side, I turned out to have the good ending instead, possibly because I answered honestly pretty much all of the time.

Beating the main story will unlock Colloseum mode, where you will be able to compete with another friend. You could also co-operate by opening the Babel mode, where single or multiplayer trials await you, although you are advised to be adept at the game before trying this.

Oh, and did I mention that Catherine is a very Japanese video game? It could even have been a Grasshopper Manufacture or Suda51 game, when looking at the scale of weirdness of this. The presentation is pretty much an eye catcher because nothing else looks like Catherine out there.

But it's not all well done. The game suffers from clunky controls. Circling around with the camera, especially at the back of stages can be frustrating. Once you are manouevring at the back, controls are reversed as well, which although logical in the end did not work out great.

And the difficulty curve, or just the balance between Easy, Normal and Hard is unconventional. I managed to beat it on Normal Mode, but I felt that there should had been one mode instead. For me, any game should start out easy long enough for the majority of players to keep trying.

Having said all of that, Catherine remains an unusual title which became a surprise hit published by Atlus. If you are looking for something completely different, then you should give this an attempt and support the creativity found in it.

Rating: 7.5

inFAMOUS

inFAMOUS is a versatile and alluring PS3 game where you are the protagonist Cole, who has been granted with electrical super powers by the Ray Sphere. The backstory involves a large city gone to ruins because of a huge blast, and it's now ruled by ruthless gangs of terror.

Cole is equipped with enhancable abilites that give him tactical advantages towards his foes, destructive powers and best of all ways of mobilizing around quickly. Sliding on train rails or hovering around is hip.

As a sandbox game, inFAMOUS is well designed by the surroundings, and especially plays fastpaced as a third person shooter. I was most of all enjoying the climb physics it provides, as Cole has swift and adaptable reflexes to grab anything that can hold his body up.
 
You can play main missions, as well as side missions. Getting missions is quick, precise and convenient. Because of the game's overall speed, you probably will do a lot of the side missions as well.

The current story is about Cole being awakened with his new super powers, and he decides to test around his karma, battling the deadly gangs in the process as well as dangerous villains. Luckily he has a supportive team of friends to assist him with information and sometimes backup.

A morality system plays occassionally, as you as the player will have to decide to do either good or evil actions. Whatever the outcome will give you more access to either the good side of Cole's powers, or the evil side of him. Of course, story consequences play here as well.

I didn't notice much of the soundtrack, because I was too busy navigating around and shooting up stuff. Deflecting incoming missiles or dropping from high locations and activating a powerful thunder drop are more ways of enjoying the game.

There is also an art style based on comics to accompany the 3D graphics. And the more experience points you collect, the quicker you are able to upgrade your available abilities further. And there is a lot of stuff to do.

Sucker Punch created a different sandbox game where you are not driving around cars, but instead sliding on train rails to travel even faster than your average driving game. And that's only one part of the slick action provided by Cole's fun powers.

Rating: 8.4

inFAMOUS 2

In the sequel I went the evil path instead of the good. There isn't much change between them apart from the available missions, powerups and dialogues. New powerups to get such as grabbing up objects and tossing them and being able to slinger up buildings add up to Cole's superpowers. The graphics were done better and the new story worked, but comic scenes were lessened.

There is also user related content available, as gamers are able to make their own missions and rate others. This makes the replay value obviously longer, but both games are about the same for me. The only reason inFAMOUS 2 gets a slightly higher score is because of more content being available, the new city and the new gameplay elements.

Rating: 8.5

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

I'm pleased to have gotten the opportunity to be able to play on the Sony Playstation 3 at home. Actually, this is the first time that I have thoroughly played on a Sony console, by my own. It will be only temporary though, but with what short time I will be experiencing it, surely it will be interesting with the available games I have also lent (and bought some just for this period).

Starting with Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, let's jump right ahead into one of the PS3's best exclusive games. Although it has been described as a cinematic game, even more than previous titles, it still uses the familiar mechanics we have grown accustomed to in earlier Solid titles.

I know that it's been five years since this was released, making it almost a retro game for me IF I played it that time ago. But bear with me, my accessibility, time and money simply weren't available back then. Hence why this sudden review, an uprising if you will.

There is a lot of storyline, a lot of conclusions heading your way as you proceed with each chapter awaiting you. By now, I have become used towards both the impressive and the wacky parts of the overall story. Nothing would had prepared me for this latest plot though, even after beating Metal Gear 1 & 2 and Solid 1 through 3.

More on that further downwards. First towards the actual gameplay, which is still intact and enhanced here and there. Your camouflage options are largely more automatical this time, as it adapts towards your current surroundings.

Next, Otacon, one of your best allies, grants you a cooperative partner in the form of Metal Gear Mk. II, a remote controlled robot with various abilities such as stealth, hacking and attacking with electricity.

The overhead camera of earlier Metal Gear games has been replaced by a third person view(over the shoulder), while an optional first person view is also available previously seen in Sons of Liberty and The Twin Snakes.

A new Psyche Meter determines Snake's mental status through the battlefields, as his psychology is tested by the dire circumstances and his foes. Because of Old Snake's physical status caused by FOXDIE, the side effects of a stressed out meter can range from back pain to moving slower in overall.

You still have to remain tactical with your espionage action. Expect to see pretty much all of the trademarks that have accompanied the titles, such as cardboard boxes, nude magazines and wacky bonus content.

The dialogue scenes combined with the amazing codec scenes(for they are the driving force of storytelling) make up for one of the most epic plots seen in the history of video games yet. I don't want to spoil much about it, but topics that are present include the evolution of war, the Patriots of course, economics and the conclusion of many major characters and a conclusion towards the franchise in overall.

Hideo Kojima deserves valuable credit for writing a rather complex plotline that cleverly connects throughout each title and is interesting enough on their own as standalones. And he is not done, no sir. As I write, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes and Metal Gear Solid 5 (Phantom Pain?) are in development.

The locations surrounding Guns of the Patriots include the Middle East, South America, Eastern Europe and finally Shadow Moses Island. The cut-scenes are done well and the presentation is superb combined with the screenplay and the music(almost as if it was just a movie).

Metal Gear Solid 4 is a great title that pushed both Konami and the Playstation 3 towards greater fame and money of course. It's an essential title because of Kojima's crazy yet very well crafted story that flows through each title chronologically.

It's also a must play for fun boss battles, adaptable infiltration situations, weird Japanese humor and memorable characters. And the epilogue was one hell of an emotional and awesome experience for me. Snake, Big Boss and Major Zero have one final conversation before departing ways.
 

Still, it's not my favorite Metal Gear title. It's very hard to pick a favourite out of them though, and I think I am not alone when I say this. Meanwhile, I'm looking very much forward towards the future titles Kojima has planned.

I am also amazed that he is still able to come up with new stories inside the franchise. And one day, I would like to play Portable Ops and Peace Walker as well, just to keep up with this intensively popular series of video games.

Rating: 8.3

Rockcan Sound E Can

This is a little bonus post I did not expect to write.

Courtesy of The Mega Man Network, arguably the most famous fansite of the Blue Bomber in the West, I was luckily chosen as the winner out from a large number of around 400 people who send their congratulations towards the blue man himself reaching the anniversary of 25 years.

Since this celebration happened, people were asked to write their own comments about the franchise aside from congratulating it in general. 5 people would then randomly be chosen in order to receive 5 different and randomly chosen prizes.

What did I get? Well, the Rockcan Sound E Can of course! It comprises of 10 CD albums with the original tunes on it for the Classic Mega Man games from 1-10 excluding M&B. Next to that, the CD's have cover arts depicting the hero surrounded by allies and the Robot Masters while having colorful backgrounds.

A booklet depicting more artwork from each game is provided, and it details the track list as well. There are even a generous amount of bonus tracks available, some of which I had not hear before yet! They usually would be remixed versions, but nonetheless are welcome additionals.

But in the end, the best object of the prize for me is the steel can itself, which has shaped itself as a real life E can, which are life supplies for Mega Man through his games. Someday I might even put in little blue energy drinks inside of it instead of the 10 albums which were there in the first place!

I must say, I was surprised of this personal announcement and once again I have to thank The Mega Man Network for giving me this valuable and perhaps even sentimental prize. My overall feeling towards the franchise in my latter post surrounding it seems to have changed much more positively, as I cannot wait what Capcom has in store for the Blue Bomber next.

And with that all said, let me share with you some pictures:

 

 25th anniversary!

 "Rockman! This box is a transportation device! I can’t exchange it for a return, even if it's just stained, torn or bent, so be careful!"

 FRAGILE (Crash Man), THIS END UP (Gravity Man), DON’T GET WET (Pump Man), CAUTION HOT (Heat Man).

 The massive E can!

 Unfolding the CD tracks.

 Rockman 3, my favorite Mega Man game.

 The metamorphosis of Mega Man throughout.

*Action figure not included*