Games I am Excited About (Spring Edition)

I really didn't think 2011 was going to be a big year for me, game-wise.  For one thing, I made a vow late last year that I would no longer just buy anything I came across that tickled my fancy, but that I would only buy games that I 1)  Knew I would love and 2)  I knew I might have a hard time finding if I didn't buy them right away because of a low print-run. 

Then, two games that I had been planning to get for Christmas in 2010 were pushed off to 2011 (Ghost Trick:  Phantom Detective and Kingdom Hearts:  ReCoded).  Then they announced a sequel to Dissidia Final Fantasy and any restraint I might have pretended to have was blown away.  The finishing blow was an announcement of (yet another) remake of Final Fantasy IV and its sequel on PSP.  Hell, even if they don't localize it (chances are high they will but you never know...the PSP is pretty much DOA here in America) I will import it.

Also I just happened to read about a cool time-traveling game called Radiant Historia that is supposed to be one of the best JRPGs that have come out in a long time.  Anything that sounds remotely Chrono Trigger-ish is an automatic buy in my book.

*sigh*  Anyway, the game out of those that I am the most excited about is of course, Dissidia.  After long and careful thought, I've figured out who my top 3 characters are that I will main.  Of course, these decisions pend on how they actually play when I get the game, but this is who I am going to try dominating the game with first:

Cecil - Duh, kinda obvious if you know me.  But besides the fact that the eight-year old in me will never stop being in love with him, he was actually a really great fighter in Dissidia 1, underrated if you ask me.  Most people hated that he changed attack styles and fighter class depending on what combo you used, but I loved it.  His Dark Knight attacks were devastating when it came to draining your enemies' strength, and then you just needed to quickly switch to one of his Paladin combos to finish them off easy-peasy.  Yeah, it sucked that he had mostly air combos as a Paladin, but hopefully that will be fixed this time around because an actual warrior that fights in the air (KAIN!) will be in the game now. 

Kain - OMFG KAIN.  The perfect character to introduce the Dissidia sequel with (OK, Lightning was introduced too, but really...who gives a fuck about Lightning?).  Obviously I don't know too much about how he handles besides what I've seen in gameplay videos (as expected, he has a lot of air combos, as he is a Dragoon), so this choice is more purely based on fangirl glee than anything else.  I am hoping that they give Kain Cecil's air moves, and make Cecil more of the ground power-house he was meant to be in Final Fantasy IV.  Also, Kain's EX-mode is Holy Dragoon Kain and he apparently wears teal nail polish.  Really, can you ask for any more than that?  Actually, yes you can...why the fuck did they not give Kain a ponytail like he wears in FFIV: TAY?  And where is his crystal crown?  I know Cecil doesn't wear his crown either (BLASPHEMY!) but poor Kain waited 32 years to finally be better than Cecil at something, they could have at least shown his Holy Dragoon outfit in all its glory that they give it in FFIV:  TAY.  Because let's face it, in that game, Cecil blows and Kain is the head bitch in charge.

Yuna - This is the character I am most hesitant about backing all the way from the get-go.  And no, it's not because she's not part of the hot angst-sandwich that is Kain and Cecil's relationship.  I am intrigued by Yuna's play style, as she doesn't appear to directly fight at all...she summons Eidolons to fight in her place and the only direct attack she really uses is her EX-attack, which is when she "sends" the enemy (basically means she releases their souls so they can die in peace).  As far as I know, there are no other characters that play quite like her.  I'm more of a hack and slash melee girl, so that is why this character is such a departure from what I would normally back.

Just a note, if I were making this list based on characters that were in the old game vs. new characters in this game, this is how my choices would pan out:

Characters returning from Dissidia 1:  Cecil, Warrior of Light, Cloud of Darkness

New Characters to Dissidia 2:  Kain, Yuna, Laguna



Defending Squall Leonhart

"I like sparring with my rival and dancing.  I'm a Virgo, too."

 

Did you play Final Fantasy VIII when it first came out?  Were you between the ages of 13 and 19?  Bonus question:  Was Final Fantasy VII the "game that got you back into video games"?

 

If you answered yes to all three of the above questions, you probably hated Final Fantasy VIII.  And at the time, you probably had some pretty good reasons that were further justified by the protesting masses of the internets:

 

The junction system SUCKS!

 

I hate drawing magic!

 

SeeD SUCKS!

 

This game is boring!

 

I don't want to play a "love story"!

 

The only good thing about this game is LAGUNA!  (Obviously not a complaint, but comes into play later.)

 

and of course, the big one...

 

Squall is the worst FF hero EVER! (Because he isn't Cloud...!)

 

No one liked Squall, the protagonist of Final Fantasy VIII.  He was whiny, had no friends and got his kicks by getting into fights with his rival and crying about it afterwards.  His favorite line in the game (both spoken and in his thoughts) was "...Whatever."  (Yes, it always included the ellipses beforehand.)  On the surface, he had a great thing going.  He lived away from home, he was good-looking, the master of an entirely ridiculous and apparently hard-to-use weapon (the GUNBLADE...yes, it is what you think it is...half-gun, half-sword), and he had a hot teacher who wanted to jump his bones.  And yet, he was still a little bitch.

 

The hot teacher

 

But I am here to tell you something that will either blow your mind or make you press the Back button on your browser to look for more Mass Effect porn fan fiction.

 

Final Fantasy VIII didn't suck as much as we thought it did.

 

In fact, Squall Leonhart is quite possibly the BEST Final Fantasy hero ever.

 

Squall Leonhart wasn't an asshole.  He was merely a product of his environment - which consisted entirely of assholes.  Yes, Squall wasn't the problem in Final Fantasy VIII.  It was every other damn character in the game that ruined his life and made him seem like a dick - including fan-favorite Laguna.

 

Before I go any further, spoilers are abound.  Got it?  Good.

 

So let's begin with Squall's personal life.  Orphaned at only days old, he and his adopted older sister Ellone were sent to an orphanage that was established to house the children who lost their families in the Sorceress War.  Squall stuck closely to his sister, who was well-loved by everyone, but otherwise was a pretty normal and shy kid.  But then one day, when Squall was around five or six, Ellone disappeared from the orphanage without a good-bye.  Crushed from being abandoned by the only person he ever loved, Squall became bitter and distanced himself from his peers, afraid of being heartbroken again. 

 

Squall was never adopted, and instead, the husband of the woman who ran the orphanage brought Squall to his...military school.  Oh boy.  That was a great idea, bringing a broken, loner kid into a military environment at the age of six, right?!  Well, it turns out that the orphanage ended up being a front where basically all the kids were either dumped into military school or assigned to a navy fleet, so with that we have Edea and Cid Kramer, some of the first assholes who ever graced young Squall's life.

 

Squall grows up in Balamb Garden, the elite military academy, and is a promising student, even admired by his peers.  He just strives to do his job and doesn't want to stand out.  He makes it a point not to be dependent on anyone else, and thus not be depended on. 

 

However, his instructor, Quistis Trepe, just will not leave him alone.  She constantly encourages him to open up to her, pushing the boundaries that a normal student, let alone a military student, would be uncomfortable with.  It turns out that Quistis is just toying with Squall to see if her feelings for him are as a teacher or something more...but she never just comes out with it.

 

At 17, Squall achieves the rank of SeeD, the mercenary force that Balamb Garden employs around the world.  This is the Garden's main form of income.

 

For his first mission, Squall is stuck in a squad with a too-peppy pyromaniac and the problem child from your 5th-grade class that needed to be hooked to an IV of Ritalin and reacted to everything with a fist pump.  They both spend their mission time either annoying Squall by jumping and dancing around him declaring how happy they are to be in SeeD, or by childishly demanding that he open train doors for them, take charge, etc.  It turns out that their first mission as SeeDs is to be the bitch of a small-town resistance group rebelling about the big, bad government that took them over.  The resistance group is run by a 17 year old girl appropriately nicknamed "The Princess", who basically starts belittling Squall's military lifestyle and attitude as soon as they meet, despite her being the one who hired him.  No one understands her struggle, her drive. Oh, and she is also the only child of the General of the Big Bad Government's army and her gorgey, perfect momma died in a car accident when she was a kid. 

 

Meet Squall's love interest, "The Princess" Rinoa.  Oh boy.

 

Hijinks ensue, and Squall ends up eventually teaming up with Quistis and another douche lord, Irvine Kinneas, who is supposed to be a sniper but doesn't actually shoot anyone in the game.  Balamb Garden is thrown into terrible danger by the actions of Squall's rival, Seifer, and eventually Garden's headmaster, Cid, just sort of gives up and tells Squall that he is in charge of defending the Garden, protecting all of the students who inhabit it, and still keeping an eye on his bitchy client who hired him.

 

Squall is 17.  He has probably been a SeeD for about a week at this point.  There are numerous students who have been SeeDs much longer and have far more military experience.  Hell, one of them, Quistis, is in your damn party.  But Cid decides that this is just a great idea and then disappears.  Does that not give Squall the right to be a little frustrated?  Does it not give Squall the right to throw a hissy fit on the command deck of Garden?  It turns out that Edea has decided to get possessed by an evil sorceress and tear shit up with Seifer at her side, and Cid didn't want to be put in the "awkward" position of killing his wife.  So he asked Squall to take care of it for him.  Cool.  He doesn't inform Squall that Edea is his wife until far later though.  Actually, Squall finds out on accident, and then gets even more distressed.  Good job.

 

Besides a team of selfish assholes who demand Squall make all the decisions of the group (seriously, the only dialogue your team members give you is "Do it Squall" or "Only you can do it, Squall!"), and a rival who hates your guts for absolutely NO reason, Squall really has no other contacts in the world at this point.  His disappearing sister, Ellone decides to make Squall pass out at random times to force his consciousness into the past (her special power) so that she can try to get him to change it.  When his consciousness is sent into the past, he takes the form of a soldier named Laguna who is basically an incompetent moron.  Squall begs her to stop doing this to him, and she only concedes after she figures out she can't change the damn past.  She never decides to reveal herself to him as "his" Ellone and she doesn't bother telling him that Laguna is - wait for it - his dad.

 

Squall has a dad?  Oh yeah, and he's quite alive and well.  In fact, Laguna is the president of the most advanced nation in their world.  Laguna basically abandoned Squall's mom on a chase to retrieve a kidnapped Ellone, without knowing that his mom, Raine, was pregnant.  Once he got Ellone, instead of going home with her, he sent her back to their village and decided to stay and run the country since they decided he would be a cool prez.  Ellone of course came back to a dying Raine, and then she and Squall were sent off to the orphanage.  While Ellone knew of Laguna's existence this whole time, no one bothered to tell Squall.  And yes, Laguna eventually became aware of Squall thanks to Ellone.  But instead of reaching out to his son, he decides to still just chill in Esthar.  Asses!

 

Eventually, Squall travels to Esthar to try to find a cure for Rinoa, who has fallen into a coma.  It is of course only after she practically dies that he decides he may have feelings for her, and she seemingly gets a little less bitchy.  He and Rinoa are shot into space, where she ends up going psycho under her possession by a sorceress and he watches helplessly as the whole base tries to kill the one other person in his life he could possibly put up with.  This happens a few other times in the game, too.  Rinoa becomes a sorceress, which means she is public enemy #1.  This ends up driving Squall a bit crazy.

 

In the end, the final battle resides in the future, where this crazy bitch sorceress Ultimecia behind all this mess has been trying to "compress time" so she can be the one and only ruler of existence.  That's all.  The ultimate motive behind the founding of Garden and SeeD was to hunt sorceresses (Cid let that factoid drop between when he decided to hand Garden over to Squall and when he told her his wife was a sorceress), so guess who gets roped into going into the future and destroying her?

 

Ultimecia just ends up throwing a lot of shade around and Squall kills her, because at this point he is just tired of being treated like a dick for being a SeeD. 

 

After a wicked-cool time-traveling sequence where Squall creates a time loop, the game ends and Squall ends up being the savior of the world, even though he really didn't want to and was basically forced into it.

 

Now isn't that so much more realistic and badass then say, silly little Cloud Strife who wants to fight to do the right thing and save the dying planet on behalf of the little flower girl who died and touched his emo heart?

Final Fantasy IV DS: A Review

"As long as there is darkness, so will there always be light."

Final Fantasy IV has come in many incarnations, and most of them made it to American shores.  I've played them all, but this specifically is about the DS version.  I know some would describe it as the pinnacle of all of the Final Fantasy IV releases, but I respectfully disagree.  I think that title goes to the PSX version of Final Fantasy IV, which was apart of Final Fantasy Chronicles.  But that is another subject entirely.

Final Fantasy IV DS was completely remastered from its original version with new 3D graphics, voice acting, a new script/translation and a new job enhancement system called "Augments".  You can also fight two new bonus bosses and use a New Game + feature.  However, the core storyline, characters, battle system and maps remained the same.  Does a traditional Square RPG from the early 90's have a place on the shelf with today's RPGs, which have shunned random battles, turn-based systems and pretty boy heroes who feel feelings?

The Plot (Spoiler Free)

Final Fantasy IV was the RPG that opened up the door for RPGs to have meaningful story lines that went beyond a couple of obscure orders from a king telling you to vanquish evil.  However, the story itself is still pretty simplistic compared to games today.  This is a good thing, however, as it gives the most focus to the two main themes of the story:  redemption, and love (all kinds of love, not just romantic).

The tale revolves around Cecil, a dark knight from the kingdom of Baron, the most powerful nation on the planet (it is called both The Blue Planet and Earth).  Orphaned since birth, Cecil has been raised under the tutelage of the King of Baron himself and has become a Dark Knight at his insistence.  He is also made Captain of the Red Wings, Baron's air force, at a young age.  Cecil is not very forthcoming with his feelings and keeps to himself, but he does have two companions that seemingly never leave his side.  They are Kain, his best friend since childhood and captain of the Dragoons, Baron's other powerful army, and Rosa, a childhood friend-turned lover who is an up-and-coming white mage.

The game opens with Cecil returning to Baron from a particularly troubling mission where he was ordered to invade a seemingly innocent village and plunder a crystal.  The mission leads him to question the orders of the King of Baron, which results in him and Kain being banished from Baron and forced to deliver a package to the northern village of Mist before they are allowed to return.  The seemingly simple mission spirals Cecil into a conspiracy that threatens the entire planet, and he has to decide if he has the courage to betray his kingdom and leave everything he has known behind to do what is right.

If you take out the random battles, Final Fantasy IV DS features quite a fast-paced, yet in-depth story, with plenty of twists to keep you on your toes.  Cecil faces betrayal, devastating loss and one of the more despicable Final Fantasy villains - Golbez, a man who enters the narrative with his own ambitions and will stop at nothing to take anyone who opposes him down.

The characters you meet have memorable and distinct personalities, each with their own desires and goals that do not always mesh well with Cecil's.  Near the end of the game players are rocked with the typical "Final Fantasy" twist that ties the narrative together.  Unlike most Final Fantasies, this one actually makes sense and keeps you desperate to uncover more right up until the final boss battle.  It should also be noted that Final Fantasy IV DS contains expanded plot lines for certain characters that were not originally included in original releases.  Most of them are near the end of the game, but they are certainly worth the play through, as they focus on the most intriguing characters in the narrative.

The ending is very satisfying and you get to see the effects of your actions throughout the entire game.  It's actually rather strange that Square Enix would choose to do one of their rare Final Fantasy sequels for the Final Fantasy game that arguably had the most comprehensive ending, but if you are interested in continuing the narrative the sequel is called Final Fantasy IV:  The After Years, and it is only available on Wiiware.

Plot Score:  4 out of 4 Cecils

The Battle System

The battle system in Final Fantasy IV DS gets a very slight update from its original counterpart.  It is still ATB (and it can be merciless if you set it to Fast (1) and Active), and certain actions and spells will still take forever to occur.  There are many critics of the ATB because there is rarely anything to do except select your action from a series of simple menus and watch your sprite move.  While I am personally not a fan of too complex battle systems (Legend of Dragoon, anyone?), I can see how it would get boring fast.  Square Enix seems to have wanted to counter the boredom of random battles (and let's face it, you are going to be doing A LOT of them if you want to make it far, because level-grinding is a must), so they added the Auto-Battle feature.  Auto-Battle basically means that with the push of a button (X, to be exact!), your characters will automatically battle for you with pre-programmed actions, and you can just sit back and relax (or read, like I did). 

The beauty of Auto-Battle is that you can use it to give your character more actions than they have allotted ability slots for.  For example, let's say you have Cecil and all of his ability slots are filled up with Kick, Counter, Draw Attacks and Level Lust (you get four, five if you count "Item", which you cannot swap out for anything else).  There is a separate menu for Auto-Battle, and it is there that you can tell Cecil to simply "Attack", or tell him to use an item (and then select the specific item, like a Stardust Rod).  If you want Cecil to perform that extra action, simply turn on Auto-Battle when it is his turn and he will queue it up, then turn it back off.

It should be noted that Auto-Battle can only really be implemented when you are level grinding or going through a relatively "safe" area if your people have high enough levels.  Most of the boss battles still require super-specific strategies and I can assure you that if you try to use Auto-Battle on a boss that needs to be killed a certain way, no matter how high your level you will get your ass handed to you.  With that said, the boss fights are ridiculously hard, so even if you are breezing through a dungeon you might still be unpleasantly surprised by a boss if you don't implement a perfect strategy from the first action you have available.  This might be flustering for RPG novices or even for veterans who may not be used to the brutalness of old-school RPGs.  There is pretty much no wiggle-room in the more intense battles, but they are a breeze if you know just what to do right from the start.  The balance is certainly a bit off.

Your characters each have an allotted amount of HP and MP.  HP allows your character to act in battle, but once it is depleted by your enemies the character is knocked out and can no longer act unless revived.  MP allows certain characters to cast magic spells, once they are out of MP they will not be able to cast any more magic until it is replenished.  It's as simple as that.

Battle System Score:  3 out of 4 Cecils

Gameplay

Final Fantasy IV DS is a pretty simple RPG.  You are given a variety of quests to go on, which can range from fetch-quests to rescue missions.  You battle monsters in random battles that occur on the world map and in caves and dungeons.  The monsters are not on the screen, so you can't avoid a battle unless you try to run away after the fact.  Pretty much the only place you won't be in danger of getting into battle are in the towns and castles you visit on your journey.  And yes, random battles are plentiful. 

You shop in towns to replenish your healing items and to upgrade weapons and armors for your party members.  You can also talk to NPCs to try to get some information on what to do next or helpful hints.  For the most part, the quests are linear and you are told where you need to go, but sometimes extra investigation on your part is needed.  Side quests are very limited, and you cannot really access any until the second half of the game.  The side quests are hidden pretty well - you will need to talk to NPCs or even backtrack to previously visited areas to find them.

Augments are the biggest addition to the game, and admittedly they alone are worth a re-purchase of the game if you have played it previously on another system.  Augments are basically abilities that you can get from other characters (NPCs and party members) that you can use to give your characters abilities that they would otherwise never get.  The augments you get can also be determined by how many augments you share with your party members.  For example, Palom and Porom will give you the Augment Twincast, which you can give to two of your party members and is a magic they only they were previously able to use in other versions of the games.  If you give Palom and Porom some Augments as well, they will also give you Cry and Bluff.  If you thought Twincast was awesome when just Palom and Porom were able to use it, try giving it to Cecil and Rosa.  The result is the ability to cast Ultima, the most powerful spell in the game.

Augments can range from abilities (Kick, Twincast, Counter) to party enhancements (Gil Farmer, Level Lust, Treasure Hunter).  If you couldn't tell already, they add an amazing twist to the previous gameplay and give you an opportunity to turn the tables on some of the tougher bosses (if you give the right Augments to the right people)!

After you beat the game the first time, you can start a new game +, which will basically just take all your rare items and Augments (both assigned and unassigned) and start a new game with them.  This allows you to to get through the first half the game much easier and to hopefully power up your people enough to take on the two hidden bosses, Geryon and Proto-Babil.  These guys are so hard that all you get for beating them is some EXP and the satisfaction of kicking their asses.  I managed to beat Geryon on my 2nd play through, but Proto-Babil is nearly impossible without netting yourself some rare equipment and doubles of Augments that you can only get from previous play throughs, so there is plenty to keep you busy and to add replay value.

Gameplay Score:  4 out of 4 Cecils

Presentation

There are cut scenes that occur between missions where the characters will talk to each other with live voice actors.  The voice acting isn't anything stellar, but it's not terrible, either.  I've certainly heard worse.  Cecil's voice work is very well-done and sounds appropriate for his character, as is Kain's.  Rydia's voice is better in the second half of the game.  Rosa, Edge and Golbez are definitely weaker, which is a shame because their voices sound appropriate - they just don't have personality behind them.  It was especially a disappointment for Edge, who is a particularly stand-out character in the game.  They did make an effort to make the characters from different regions have different accents though.  Cecil, Kain and Rosa certainly speak differently than Yang and Edge, they use different language (more eloquent) and have a slight British accent to their words.  That was a nice touch.

The script differs from the SNES, PSX & GBA versions of the games.  It isn't bad, but in my opinion the PSX version had the best script.  The DS version is much more medieval, which again, isn't bad, but Final Fantasy IV DS isn't just a medieval game, and it sounds a little out of place in later parts of the game.

They also slightly retouched the music for this version.  All of the tunes are recognizable from their earlier versions, and I honestly feel the music is better this time around.  Some of the tunes, such as Kingdom Baron and The Theme of Love, are far more remarkable in the DS version.  But Final Fantasy IV's soundtrack has always stood out as one of the best in the series, and all the DS version does is really just enhance it so it doesn't sound too MIDI-ish on the DS.  To really hear the difference between the old version and the new one, plug some decent earphones into your DS.

The biggest overhaul the DS version got was obviously the graphics.  The entire world has now been rendered in 3D, and the characters are now 3D models instead of sprites.  The 3D graphics are the same "cutesy" ones that were used for Final Fantasy III DS.  They are very well done, but it's unfortunate that they couldn't make the in-game graphics as amazing as the ones used in the opening FMV.  It is a bit jarring to go from one extreme to the other.  Still, that's a minor complaint.  The characters are faithfully re imagined from their sprite counterparts, right down to Rydia's crazy fro (well, for her in-game character, not her CG model).  The monster animations are very well done.  Seeing Cagnazzo snarl and snap his jaw at you as you give him a beat down is surprisingly scary.  The Four Fiends definitely benefited the most from the 3D makeover, making them even more terrifying than before.  My only complaint about the graphics are the character portraits.  It might just be nostalgia, but to me nothing beats Cecil's SNES portrait and the only person whose portrait improved after all this time is Rosa's.

Presentation Score:  3 out of 4 Cecils

If you didn't get an opportunity to play this game the first (or second, or third or fourth...) time around, and you are a Final Fantasy fan, I urge you to give the DS version a spin.  Although the SNES version shouldn't be THAT hard to find if you have access to a good used games store or Ebay, if you do find it it might be pricey ($25+ without box or instructions).  You can certainly download the SNES version on Wii Virtual Console as well, but if the script is lacking.  The PSX version is a good choice, in my opinion it is the best script and it still has the classic graphics, but the loading times are a shame and it is probably the most difficult version out there.  The GBA version is very clean and refined graphics-wise, the sprites look like they were made for the GBA SP screen (or DS!) and there are bonus dungeons that allow you to play as any character you want for the final boss (very awesome), but there are bugs in the ATB and the script is a slightly less-horrible version of the SNES script.

You can find the DS version for $19.99 or less new at most retailers, and probably less than that used.

Final Fantasy IV not only set the standard for storyline and presentation that the rest of the Final Fantasy series would follow, but it did so for the entire RPG genre coming out of Japan.  It would be replicated and imitated for a long time, until around the time Final Fantasy VII came out, which was when JRPGs became cool again and then suddenly everyone had a new game to copy.  But whether you are a fan of Final Fantasy IV or not, it was thanks to the game's successful reception in America that opened the door for Earthbound, Final Fantasy VI, and Chrono Trigger to get English localizations.

The reason why I chose Final Fantasy IV as my first reviewed game is because this game has held a very special place in my heart ever since I was a child, and the characters, story, and lessons in friendship and loyalty have stuck with me even as I have grown into an adult.  I've often played new JRPGs looking for my next "Final Fantasy IV", the next game that would get my heart racing for what would come next and that would keep me up for hours at night dreaming about the characters and their world.  I haven't found it yet.

Overall Score:  4 out of 4 Cecils

Sooooo much love for Final Fantasy IV

I am going to go fangirl on you in a second here, and I don't care how irrational or retarded I sound:

I LOVE FINAL FANTASY IV AND EVERYONE ELSE SHOULD TOO.

*sigh*

I just beat this game for the millionth time tonight.  I've played it in just about every iteration possible for a North American:

-SNES
-PSX
-GBA
-DS, imported and American (This is the one I just beat again)
-Random ROMs

I think the only way I have not purchased this game is on WiiWare, but the fact of the matter is my Wii has limited hard drive space and it is the most hated of my consoles.  It's only redeeming factor in my eyes is Final Fantasy IV:  The After Years, which I surprisingly have not beaten the hell out of yet.  I started it immediately after the first installment came out, but pretty soon I realized that this was a game I could not tolerate in chunks:  I needed the freedom to plow through it at my leisure without constant fear of that "To Be Continued..." screen popping up at the most suspenseful time.  So I told myself I would wait until all of them were out as of September 2009.  But after the last one came out, some stuff happened that put me off video games for a good, long while.  So I am quite aware that it's been a whole year now.  That's why I decided to play Final Fantasy IV again.  Not that I didn't already have the story and just about every line of dialogue memorized, but it felt appropriate to play again before working on the sequel.

So next up on deck is FFIV:  TAY, but I've been told I am not allowed to play it unless my fiance is around to watch.  Despite the fact that he claims he hates Final Fantasy IV and that it's one of the worst games ever, he still wants to see how things go for our celebrated heroes seventeen years later.  Funny.

It's hard for me to explain to people (both the total strangers I bother with this shit and people I know) why I love this game so much.  I mean, yeah, every gamer has a game or a franchise that they stand behind and think is the best, but usually it's just something like "Halo rulz my bitches!" or "I love sniping in Modern Warfare!, the head shots ROCK BRAAAAA!"  (Just an FYI I have no idea if you can do sniping in Modern Warfare, the most I have seen of it is a  guy who downed like six burgers while playing the same multi-player scenario over and over because he was trying to get some random trophy and he thought it was very entertaining for myself and my boyfriend at the time, now finance, to watch him in all his gluttonous glory, even though some guy kept pwning him over and over again.  If I had had a seizure right there on the couch and started flailing about helplessly I'm sure the most he would have done was give me a high-five.)

Anyway...

FFIV deserves an entire other post dedicated to why it is great and I need to think about every little detail carefully, so this will be continued then.

The crystal sheds its light silently...

Save Point

My father had been staying with an elderly lady in Ohio that he met through an ex-coworker, trying to get a job at the Honda plant in a town named Marysville.  Honda was a great place to work and would mean dad would make a lot more money, enough that mom wouldn't have to work at night anymore and could stay home with me and Ryan.  But mom didn't want to wait much longer to find a place to live because she wanted to make sure I started my new school at the beginning of the year with the other kids.  This was all explained to me as we drove to New Jersey, where I would be dropped off for the summer.

I had no qualms about my vacation in New Jersey.  I was still at an age where relatives were exciting and not humiliating or boring to be with.  I was even excited about my pre-arranged week stay at my boring-as-hell Aunt Cathy's house.  She was a newlywed so now I would have more company than just her and her cats.  I had brought a huge selection of books, coloring books, and notebooks so I could write stories to my heart's content.

It was in New Jersey that I first encountered the Super Nintendo.  The gaming industry had moved on without me and when my cousin taught me how to play Mario Paint, I wasn't impressed.  Sure, the colors were bright and for the first time I could remember Mario looked like his box art counterpart (I am of course referring to the famous blue Super Mario 2 box), but it was boring.  My cousin wouldn't let me play any of his other games because as he explained, they were too hard for me.  So Mario Paint it was.

I was shipped off to visit other relatives as well, my home base with my aunt and grandma in their North Bergen apartment.  When it finally came time for me to visit boring, hyper-religious Aunt Cathy, I wasn't as optimistic as I had previously been.

My uncle, her new husband (now ex-uncle I suppose), was as boring as her.  He would wake up at the crack of dawn to do some sort of martial arts in the backyard, then quietly slip in the house and eat breakfast with us without uttering a word.  After that I would usually never see him again until the next morning.  I wasn't even sure if he had a job, but the point is that meant I was completely in Cathy's care.  I was as miserable as could be.  The pool I had been promised I would have unlimited access to ended up being closed to me after a day because the couple that owned it decided to go on vacation.  All the Amish villages we visited blurred together very quickly.  After a disastrous trip home from a video rental store (I had wanted to rent two movies but I was only allowed one and threw a fit), I stomped inside and was surprised to see my uncle in the living room, cleaning out the cabinets under their TV unit.  He had a few items splayed out on the floor, including a Super Nintendo.  That was the last thing I expected to find in this house.

"Is that yours?" I asked.

"Yes," he said, not looking up at me.  "Do you play?"

"Only Mario Paint."

"Well there are plenty of games besides Mario Paint!"  And then he laughed, which freaked me out.  Hearing his voice and then laughter in such short succession was too much of a shock.

He invited me to sit down while my aunt came in and went into her bedroom, slamming the door and probably praying for my soul.  He handed me a small plastic Rubbermaid bin that had a couple of cartridges and a few game boxes.  Since my basis for picking out games up to this point was the game either being a Disney tie-in or Mario, I was overwhelmed.  F-Zero?  The Legend of Zelda?  Super Bowling?  Super Mario World?  I picked up one of the games that was in a box.

Final Fantasy II.

It was a simple red box with the title.  That was it.  I turned it over and read the description.  What the heck was a RPG?  Still, it sounded just like some of the fantasy chapter books I had been reading.

"Have you played this?"  I asked.

"Yeah, I beat it a long time ago," he replied, finally looking up at me.  "It's OK, but I'll never play it again.  It's one of those games you just play once.  Why don't you just keep it?"

Being a kid that loved any kind of gift, especially a toy, I didn't bother telling him I didn't even have a SNES.  I thanked him and went up to the attic to my guest room.  Since he was still cleaning out the TV unit I didn't bother asking if I could play.  I opened the box and pulled out the cartridge, instruction manual, and world map.  I had never seen such a thick instruction manual!  I switched on my light and read it cover-to-cover several times before I was called down to dinner.

It's so funny, because at the time, I was just excited to have something else to amuse me besides my 30-minute cartoon from the rental store.  I had absolutely no concept that that miserable day would be a turning point for the rest of my life.

It sounds dramatic and crazy, but it is honestly how I feel and I will never again feel otherwise.  Sure, I might have been introduced to Final Fantasy at some other point in my life, but that's something I won't really ever know now.  But opening that book and falling in love with just the concept of Final Fantasy would not only lead me tumbling head-first into the world of gaming once again, but that autumn it would introduce me to my first best friend, five years later it would lead me to another friend that made my high school existence much more bearable, and in that same fifth year I would meet the love of my life.

And doesn't the heart of every true gamer have a moment like that in their lives?  Sometimes you know as you are experiencing the moment that your life has changed, and in cases like mine you don't figure it out until years later and it just strikes you one day.

---

We moved into a duplex that summer, a temporary solution until my parents could scout out more housing developments that were popping up all over Marysville.  The boys next door desperately wanted a Sega Genesis, but they couldn't get one until they sold their SNES.  I begged my dad to buy it, even though I knew he wouldn't play with me ever again.  Final Fantasy II was tucked away safely under my bed in my suitcase.

I spent my first summer in Ohio holed up inside with Cecil and Rosa, and saved the world three times.

Continue?

Sadly, I can't claim that I beat the first two games I ever played through. I don't think I ever even got to a bonus round in Duck Hunt and once I discovered the joys of used video game stores I eventually sold off my copy of Duck Hunt/Super Mario Bros. for $2 credit towards a PS1 game. It wouldn't be until I got Super Mario All-Stars years later that I would finally beat my first Mario game.

My love affair with Mario, and gaming in general, actually ended quite quickly because my mom would make me quit after five hours a day of staring at the TV. Since there were no saved games and I was, you know, six years old, I didn't really have what it took to get to the eighth world and save our princess.

I had also started first grade and things were getting exciting, friends from kindergarten were in my class and now I got to go to school all day. After school I would go to downtown Rochester with my mom to the Mayo clinic; I was getting a little brother.

On my seventh birthday, my dad wanted to take me to KB Toys at the mall so I could pick out a Barbie I wanted. My mom was too tired, she was in her sixth month of pregnancy and she was working through it part-time at Target, so it was a rare trip with my dad and of course when it came to Barbies he had no clue what he was doing. We got to the store and in addition to getting my Birthday Barbie (that was her real name), my dad had picked out something in the glass case behind the counter. On the way home in the car, I dug it out of the bag and squealed: A Game Boy! I had certainly heard of this, a friend of mine at school had brought one in and had it confiscated. And better yet, I recognized the fat mustached man on the cover of one of the games it came with....Mario! I think that might have been the first time I experienced nostalgia, as I remembered my lazy afternoons in front of the TV, shoving Econofoods chicken nuggets in my mouth as I played. I begged my dad to let me play as soon as we got home, Barbie already forgotten.

But it's funny, as I looked over my dad's shoulder as he showed me how to play, I wanted more than anything just to watch him. It was more exciting for me to see how far he could go with Mario, since in my short history with games I could only manage playing the same levels over and over again. Eventually it got to be that I would just curl up next to my dad, and he would fire up the Game Boy and we would see how far we could go that night. As he played, I would make up a narrative, pieced together from the action of the game and what I had read in the instruction booklet, which I poured over every night. My dad would just laugh at me and ask me what happened next in the story. I'd like to think that my love of a good gaming plot stemmed from those stories I would tell him.

The day we finally reached the final stage and we flew Mario's airplane to victory over the alien Tatanga, I cheered and announced that Mario and Daisy were off to get married on a boat, ala Ariel in The Little Mermaid (guess I was wrong on that one). I had finally seen the ending of a game and my love for gaming had been reignited. In the meantime, my dad bought me a couple of other titles for us to enjoy together. I finally got a new NES game, The Little Mermaid, the first game I ever beat on my own. The last game my dad and I played together was Bart Simpson's Escape from Camp Deadly. I was too terrified to even entertain the thought of playing that game on my own, especially in the later levels in the deep woods and underground. I don't think I could bring myself to pick it up today, either, which just goes to show what a pussy I am when it comes to certain games.

I feel it's appropriate to end this chapter here. It wasn't too long before my love for video gaming faded into the background once again. After my brother was born, a lot of things changed at once. My dad stopped playing video games with me, although I never understood why. We don't have the kind of relationship today where I could ask him why he stopped and expect an answer not laced with sarcasm.  We never had a talk about it, he just stopped coming to get me from my room and the Game Boy remained in the end table drawer next to the couch, put back in its original box.  He eventually started taking long trips, gone for several weeks at a time, and after I finished first grade and I hadn't seen my dad for two months, my mom announced that we were moving to Ohio.

I would be staying in New Jersey with relatives as long as it took for my mom and dad to settle on a house, and it would be too much for them to have to entertain me and take care of Ryan.

To be continued...

How far would you go to save someone you love?

This is the question that Heavy Rain asks, not only of Ethan Mars, the tortured father who watches his son get spirited away right before his eyes, but it is also described as the overall theme by creator David Cage.  It's been a long time since I've thought about a game well after I've turned it off, let alone pondered the theme. 

It's a hypothetical that actually gets thrown around a lot.  It might come up in one of those "what-if" games that are popular at parties (well, not that kind of parties I go to, but that's not the point).  You might think about it during a thriller where everyone gets a butcher job.  You may have told your significant other or a good friend "I would do anything for you!"  You hear about the moms who lift a car off of their trapped baby or like a recent news story, where a husband had to choose between saving his wife or child in a car accident.  Funnily enough, I am almost never honest with myself when I encounter these situations that make me think.  Even if I never say my answer out loud, I still lie to myself in my head to make myself feel better.  I do this because I know there would be people who objected to my answer (no matter what it was).  Vicious cycle. 

For example, with regard to the story above about the husband and the car accident:  who would you choose to save?  Your significant other, or your child?  I don't want to get into the arguments for one or the other.  If a gun was being held to your head and you had to pick one, which would it be?  The first answer that comes to your mind is probably the most honest one, but if you are like me you will quickly wipe it from your memory and pretend that you need to think it over more.  Let's add one more variable to the equation:  What if you had to chose between yourself, your significant other, or your child?  Does the answer change?

Heavy Rain makes you think about all of these decisions.  Of course there is a safety net in the fact that it's just a game and that whatever decision you end up making will have pretty much no effect on you in real life, but being forced to confront the decision in even a virtual world can be taxing on the soul.  In my first play through, I was determined to go as far as I needed to save my son.  I drove the wrong way on the highway, crawled through a tunnel of broken glass and through an electricity field, cut off my finger, killed a man, and took a poison that I was told would kill me.  Your fingers shake with desperation as you fill in the blank letters of the hangman to find Shaun's location, letters you earned by committing unspeakable acts.  By the time the credits rolled, I was mentally exhausted and felt as if I had just been through an ordeal on level with Ethan's.  As I laid in bed that night, I asked myself the inevitable:  Would I do any of those acts for the one I loved?  And then I smiled as I thought about all those morbid scenarios, because it had been so long since a game affected me on that kind of level.

My soul is still drained though.  I'm on what will be my final play through of the entire game, in pursuit of the Perfect Crime trophy.  So far it has involved a lot of murder and despicable decisions and more are to come.  It's funny, but I do hesitate the closer I get to the end.  I find myself thinking "At this point, you can still save Shaun...he doesn't have to die...the killer doesn't have to go free..."  It's so crazy.  I'm going to need to play something much less depressing after this.  But I have at least been assured that I still have a shred of humanity in me.