Trauma Team - The difficulty in making sequels

This past week, Trauma Team came out for the Wii. For those unaware, it's the latest in the Trauma Center series for the Wii and the DS, a medical drama where the player's job is to perform complicated surgeries. Trauma Team deviates from the standard Trauma Center mechanics by allowing you to play as one of several different characters, each performing different types of surgery, as well as patient diagnostics and forensics.

Of course, the point of this post isn't to review the game or give a recommendation (simply put, how interested you are in an anime medical drama tells you whether or not this game is for you). However, as far as sequel design goes, Trauma Team both stumbles, as well as keeps the series fresh. I'd hesitate to call it the best in the series, but at the same time, it's the most interesting and engaging.

See, as fun as Trauma Center is, one of its largest problems is repetition. There's only so much you can do with a limited toolset and a sick body. As a result, the players end up fighting regenerating superviruses and defusing bombs in order to keep the gameplay varied. And I highly doubt doctors rush in and do surgery on multiple patients in the streets in the scene of an outbreak. One of the goals of Trauma Team was to keep the gameplay varied while shying away from the silly science-fiction storyline. By giving the player viewpoints of multiple doctors and an intersecting storyline, the player may choose whatever gameplay style suits them at the moment.

Of course, this leads to problems. With gameplay spread out so much, it never feels like the individual episodes are giving enough time to be built to a satisfying conclusion. Plot points are introduced and resolved fairly quickly, and I never got to get to know the doctors as much as I would have liked. The final, overall episode also frequently forced me to play the gameplay styles I enjoyed the least.

Part of it is that one of the episodes simply felt out of place. All the doctors involved with surgery, first aid, endoscopy, and orthopedics had familiar but separate gameplay styles that worked well as a whole. Additionally, there are two non-action, but text-driven episodes; diagnostics and forensics. The diagnostics doctor (who looks like Spike from Cowboy Bebop) is charged with figuring out what's wrong with his patients so that someone else can ultimately take care of it. While this is a huge departure from the various surgeries, we still see him regularly interact with the rest of the cast. Diagnostics is also fairly straightforward but oddly addicting. Forensics, however, feels like a poor Ace Attorney clone (and adventure games in general). Naomi, the specialist in this episode, doesn't have any interaction with the main cast until near the end. Additionally, her role is less about medicine and more a detective. Also, while this may sound like an odd complaint, her episode tries to take itself seriously, which is a huge shift in tone from the rest of the game. Other episodes include a jailed surgeon with a 250-year sentence, a superhero, ninjas, and a blatant fanservice shot with first response expert Maria Torres. To try to tug our heartstrings with a half-baked murder mystery just feels weird.

While each episode certainly has its individual problems, none of them are really dealbreakers, and ultimately the variety is what makes Trauma Team so strong. Granted, as a Trauma Center veteran, the game felt far on the easy side, but hopefully a dive into the harder difficulty will ease that feeling (though I'll go ahead and scold the developers for the ridiculously anticlimactic final boss). And put some dang money into the cutscene budget; one shot looked like cardboard cut-outs falling on each other.

Trauma Team makes a strong effort to be a good sequel; it mixes things up, trying to bring in newer fans without alienating the old ones. However, comparing it to another recent sequel, Super Mario Galaxy 2, I feel that Trauma Team stands out. While SMG2 is easily a better game, it also does little that the first Mario Galaxy did not. Adding Yoshi and upping the difficulty aren't enough to make a good sequel, and as a result, Super Mario Galaxy 2 feels more like an expansion pack. Trauma Team decided to go in a different direction while still maintaining the feel of the series, and as a result, created a much more memorable product.

Smash Bros & Blazblue: a look into the fighting game genre

As my close friends know, I'm a huge fan of the Super Smash Bros. series. Melee & Brawl are some of my favorite games of all time, for a number of reasons. However, to many people they seem to be a completely different breed of fighting game as compared to Street Fighter, King of Fighters, etc. I'm not too well-versed in other fighting games, but I'm curious how the games stand out to each other. There are only two "normal" fighting games I've spent a good amount of time playing. One is Soul Calibur II, a great game that mostly managed to lure me in because I could play as Link, and the other is Blazblue: Calamity Trigger, produced by Arc System Works, creators of the Guilty Gear series.

I've spent enough time playing Blazblue to know the basic ins and outs of the game mechanics; I'm probably not going to win any tournaments, but I have a grasp of the complexity of the game. But despite how this game is supposedly a completely different kind of game than Super Smash Bros., I see several significant similarities between the two. I figured I'd have some fun deconstructing the important details.

The most significant difference between Smash Bros and a standard fighting game is the environment. Most fighting games take place in closed arenas. The only thing in the players' way is each other. Sure, there are different stages with different backgrounds and music, but functionally, it's all the same. Smash Bros, on the other hand, places a huge emphasis on the arena. The layout is different, edges are different, and many stages have obstacles that the player must avoid. Stages can be large or small, flat or vertical, and overall, stage selection is an important part of the game. Though, if you pick Final Destination every single time, that kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

Another important distinction between Smash Bros and other fighting games is environment control. There's a difference between this and the arena. Basically, characters can manipulate the environment to their advantage. This is more prevalent in Brawl than in Melee, but both games still utilize it. For example, more beginner-leveled players might view Peach's turnips as a simple projectile attack. However, they can be utilized in order to control where Peach's opponent will move on the field, creating an extra dimension to her character. Brawl takes this a step futher; characters like Snake and Rob are all about placing obstacles for the player to avoid. Even King Dedede's Waddle Dee minions are capable of harming the opponent long after they've been thrown.

However, it's clear that Blazblue also subscribes to this bit of game design. Arakune's main strategy involves "cursing" the opponent in order to trap him in a loop of projectiles. V-13 may be weak, but her projectiles can hit almost anywhere on the screen, so her opponent must carefully dodge and block in order to fight her. Even the slow, but strong Tager can magnetize his enemy in order to manipulate their movement. Environment control, and "zoning" if you will, is becoming a larger part of the genre.

Of course, all this talk about the environment and evasion links nicely to my next point about Smash Bros as opposed to most fighting games: Mobility. With all these traps and obstacles, Smash Bros places a large emphasis on being able to get around quickly. Characters can double-jump, and use a special move as a triple jump. Some characters can go even further with this, utilizing regular attacks as a means of movement and recovery. They can roll in front of and behind each other, sidestep, and even dodge in the air. By comparison, most fighting games are rather stiff and grounded in comparison. Since the environment is less of a concern, traditional fighting games prefer to focus on the precise details of the bout; punches high and low, blocking in specific ways rather than a generic "overshield" that blocks everything. Additionally, in Blazblue characters are given specific "weak, medium, strong" buttons, each having a specific use. In Smash Bros, those actions are instead called "standard, tilt, smash" by the fanbase. Even then, those actions aren't set in stone, and may not have the appropriate speed or strength for the input.

Of course, talking about attacking mechanics brings us to another important part of Smash Bros: throws. In most fighting games, throws are usually shied away from; used only to get past a block, and typically end any combo. Smash Bros sees things differently; when the opponent is grabbed, you can throw them in four ways, each way potentially setting up a different combo or attack. Some characters may have a specialty in grabbing an opponent, throwing him, only to grab him again (and there are more instances than just Dedede and Falco's chain grabs in Brawl). While most fighting games tend to view grabs as just a "free hit", Blazblue interests me in that it works throws into combos very well. Like SSB, throws in Blazblue often set up the opponent for another, stronger attack, and can occasionally be chained together. Though, the creators of the game wisely realized the potential for abuse of this system, so they put in a grab escape. Still, I feel like the system they put in offers a lot of potential.

Finally, my last point may be the deal breaker for Smash Bros as opposed to a more traditional fighting game. Lots of jokes have been made about what constitutes a "combo" in a fighting game, but I feel like combos are the most intimidating part of the game for some. In Soul Calibur 2, there was a huge list in the game's menu for potential combos. The problem? They required pressing a specific sequence of buttons in a specific order. You weren't so much learning the character as you were memorizing a list of command inputs. And really, why should the player bother to learn those in-game combos? Why not just stick with the basic, but reliable attacks they have figured out and work from there? Attempting to do the combos is probably how the "button mashing" trope got started.

That question might be why Smash Bros has gained such a fanbase. Rather than the developers giving you a preset sequence of buttons to press, they just gave you a lot of moves. Press this command, you get this move, press this one and you get another. Instead of the traditional fighting game methods, SSB gives the player various attacks and encourages to use them however they please. And that is where the fun of the game comes in; you aren't memorizing a sequence of buttons; you're trying to figure out how to properly apply the moves you know. It's very successful, and is also why I like Blazblue so much; Blazblue's game mechanics are similar to Smash Bros than a regular fighting game in this regard. There's still a huge list of moves to learn, but the player will learn new techniques as they play naturally. They become faced with a tough situation, and find a new use for a move they previously thought useless. It's a fantastic system, and one I wish was more common.

The point of this article is not to say "x is better designed than x", merely to talk about differences in game design and how they are applied within their respective franchises. I love both the Smash Bros. series and Blazblue despite their differences. The biggest problem I have with Brawl lies not within its core gameplay, but the developer's attitude towards the fanbase. Nintendo has shown no interest in expanding Brawl past its current iteration, which has plenty of problems, the largest being a bare-bones online system, and a general imbalance of its characters. Blazblue's developers, on the other hand, actively study what works and what doesn't, and plans to fix many complaints about the game in its next iteration, due out next year. It's a great way to build a community with the fanbase, and as a whole, communities are what fighting games are all about.

Alright, Devil Suvivor, we need to have a talk.

Players play games for many reasons.

Sometimes, they want to be engrossed in a good story. Sometimes they simply want to screw around and kill things. Sometimes they want to challenge their physical skills, and sometimes they want to challenge their problem-solving abilities.

But if somebody's playing a game that they're enjoying, they want to keep playing it. There's only so many times that they can attempt a mission over and over before going "I don't want to play this game any more" and shelving the game forever. Sometimes, a frustrating level isn't so bad, especially if it's towards the end. After all, the player has come this far, and what they've learned throughout the course of the game is ready to be challenged. At that point, the player is willing to go through that frustration if it means seeing the game's finale. Psychonauts had a painful final level, but the frustration made it worth it.

However, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor has a mission like this, and I'm not even a quarter of the way through the game. So I want to know: what game designer played this level and thought "yeah, I doubt this will be that bad". Really? Let's take a look at the mission:

The mission has monsters to fight that are several levels higher than you.
-This aspect isn't actually that bad; after all, the game is meant to be challenging, so this is nothing out of the ordinary
The mission has civilians that you have to protect.
-This right here should be already be a red flag to some gamers; these kind of missions are already a pain. But they're bearable.
The civilians have poor survival skills
-I'm talking to you, Mr. "I'll put myself in a spot where I can get attacked by two demons on the first turn instead of just one."
If a single civilian dies, the mission is over.
-Now it's getting bad. In some games, the mission is only failed if all the civilians die, and typically there's some reward for saving them all (see: Fire Emblem). However, in this particular mission, you have to keep an eye on every civilian's health at the same time, and spread your party members out to keep them protected, also dividing your strength against a difficult foe
The player cannot let any demons reach the edge of the stage
-Okay, now the game is just getting obnoxious. We already have so much to worry about; why is this extra element also in play? Why are we given two goals like this at the same time, when up until the point the game has only been "kill everything on the screen"? If I gang up on a monster in order to finish it off before it heals itself, a monster on the other side of the screen gets a free pass to the finish line, and really, none of my teams are strong enough to kill a monster on their own.
A civilian can be killed at full health by a monster
-This only happened one time, but it still pissed me off.

I'm not entirely surprised a mission like this is in the game (in concept, not in practice). Developers want to throw varied objectives at the player in order to stop the game from getting repetitive and thus, to stop them from being bored. However, there comes a point when the developer needs to look and make sure this level is not detrimental to the entire experience. There are many examples of these kinds of levels throughout games: water levels, autoscrolling levels, stealth levels, escort missions, yeah, we hate them all. We've all had frustration navigating Sonic underwater while a timer counts down until our death, or in Goldeneye when the best strategy for the bunker level was to go and kill everybody, THEN save Natalya, rather than having her follow you everywhere and get herself killed. A good developer takes the time to make sure the player isn't frustrated by these out of place missions; after all, in Half-Life 2, Alyx is actually helpful to the player, rather than just somebody to babysit. Water levels can be fun, too.

But whatever you do, please don't make the player grind in order to beat your game. It's terribly boring.

JRPG vs. WRPG

"While JRPGs generally involve a bunch of angsty 20-year olds with stupid hairdos following a strictly linear storyline when they aren't standing in a row in front of dancing goblins arguing about who's on potion duty, Western RPGs tend to feature more variety and less skinny, underdressed girls claiming to be men."

-Yahtzee, Zero Punctuation

While I'd say the Role-Playing-Game is my favorite genre of video gaming, I tend to only refer to Japanese RPGs. Games like Pokemon, Persona, Fire Emblem, and Disgaea rank high on the "List of games I would recommend to nerds". RPGs are very difficult to sell to a more mainstream audience, due to how much they rely on stat building and character development. They're much slower paced than Halo, God of War, Rock Band, etc. and require a significantly longer time investment from start to finish. They're much less "pick up and play" and more "Spend an hour learning how the damn game works before you actually start to play it." Hell, even if you have learned the game and you "get" it, that's still no guarantee that you'll enjoy it, as this article discusses.

Yet those of us who do enjoy RPGs feel a sense of accomplishment in the mundane. Level grinding in Disgaea to beat the next big overpowered bonus boss, hatching Pokemon eggs in order to breed the one that best completes your team, and oftentimes we finish sidequests not necessarily for the rewards, but just for the sake of knowing you've completed another of the game's tasks.

However, the people in that group may still have very different tastes in games. Hence the differences between the J and the W. I hadn't even played a Western RPG until this year, and I knew going into them that the experience would be different than what I was used to. Fallout 3 involved me for a long time, Mass Effect really sucked me in (once I figured out how the friggin' menus worked), and Fable 2 randomly decided that it didn't want the 'A' button to work for me anymore, but I wasn't enjoying the game in the first place, so no loss there.

The main difference between the two genres is indeed the linearity. JRPGs tend to always point you towards the next objective up until the end of the game, where you're randomly forced to explore the world to find party members or gods or crystals, and THEN you fight the final boss. Conversely, Western RPGs tend to set the player loose to go do whatever after the opening parts of the game. Neither approach to game design is "bad", they're just different ways of going about business. Then there's Fable, that tries to tell you it's a big open world to explore, but really, all you're doing is going from objective to objective up until you're told you aren't famous enough to continue the storyline, so go do some sidequests to kill time.

The interesting part is comparing how well certain mechanics work between the two genres. Fallout 3's world map is gigantic, and if you just follow the storyline, you'll barely see any of it. The whole point of the game is to go on a sighting tour across the entire wasteland and see what you find. It's a lot of fun. But pick a random Final Fantasy game and chances are there's no good reason to do exploring on the world map at all. Most paths are dead ends, wasting your time and draining your supplies as you fight the endless random encounters. Not to mention, in Final Fantasy VII if you strayed too far off the beaten path, you might end up with all your Materia stolen and your party underleveled in a sidequest that wasn't meant to be found by the player until much later in the game. Thankfully Final Fantasy X kicked the whole concept and just kept the player on the right track the whole time. Fable 2's interpretation was to give the player the name of a town, but not actually tell them where it was on the map. Guess you'll just have to follow the glitchy magic trail!

Another comparison between the two genres is how they handle stat-building. Western RPGs make a big deal out of leveling up, and you get experience from doing just about anything. Talking to people, completing quests, ...looking at stuff. And once you actually get to the level up, it's big and dramatic. Who knows where you could spend those points? You could spend them to become a stronger fighter, a better speaker, become sneakier, all sorts of things come from leveling up. However, JRPGs tend to build your stats in separate ways; you level up from killing monsters, and typically those games find other ways to build stats as well. The Persona games have you building up relationships with NPCs in order to strengthen the monsters you use in battle. FFVII has materia that you can redistributed to party members at any time in order to gain magic spells or boost specific stats. Things like that.

However, I think the most noticeable difference between the two genres is how they tell their stories. Another common theme between the WRPGs I've played is that the player has a large part in how the story plays out. Different dialogue options will get you different reactions from people, and some decisions can drastically affect how the story plays out. There's also a strong good/evil system going on in all the WRPGs I've played, which barely plays out at all in most JRPGs. Also worth mentioning is the open-world aspect, where a lot of the story doesn't have much to do with the main story at all. Fallout lets you wander around and do quests for random people, while Mass Effect is constantly giving you extra sidequests to do at your own leisure.

Sadly, all this freedom comes with a few drawbacks when trying to tell a good story, which is dealt with better in JRPGs. For one, Fallout 3 and Mass Effect try to make the story sound urgent "You must go catch him!" "You must go find your dad right now!" In reality? No. Don't. In fact, take your time. Do whatever you please. Don't worry, the plot will wait for you to catch up. It really takes away from the urgency of it all. JRPGs keep you on a strict path, so the story moves at a brisk and interesting pace, and you don't really get the impression of "Wait, what was I doing again?" And as far as influencing the plot goes, it's just much easier to tell a story when you don't have to write 4 versions of it.

However, the main thing that kind of bored me about games like Fallout and Mass Effect, yet enjoyed about Persona and Disgaea is simply that the characters feel more...alive. WRPGs are much more photorealistic, and they try to tell a serious storyline with believable characters...that just come across as boring. I had several party members in Mass Effect, but I really couldn't care for any of them, simply because their influence in the storyline is downplayed and only expanded on if you go out of your way to talk to them. Even if you do, it pretty much amounts to "Okay, here is my backstory". They're always talking about solving the problem at hand, and...that's it. The game is as far as the story extends. And of course, characters really don't do much except stand there and give you orders in Fallout 3. They might attack you if you don't something wrong, but they just don't feel...alive. In comparison, let's look at the cast in Persona 4. Sure, there's a great evil at hand that they want to share, and sometimes they act stupid in order for the story to move along the way the developers intended, but for all that, they just...feel more real. Mainly because they show more relatable human emotions. The characters is Mass Effect are so dry and serious, but in Persona 4, they're just...happy. They laugh together. They tease each other and play tricks. They feel much more like a team because they're actually friends, as opposed to just party members. There are sections of the game that have nothing to do with the plot; they're just there to let the characters goof off a bit and show their true selves. It's what really drew me to the game; I just had fun watching everybody interact.

I may not be trying to change any developer's opinion here; after all, both kinds of RPGs have their strengths and weaknesses, and neither is "better" than the other by definition. It's just interesting to sit down and compare them like this, and as I delve further into WRPG territory it'll be interesting to see what I find.

Mischief Makers and a look at the N64/PS era

It's strange to think of the N64 as "retro" now, though it makes sense considering the N64/PS era predated the mainstream gaming we know today. I may have owned a Genesis, but I consider the N64 the intro to the kind of gamer I am today. I mean, back on the Genesis I'd typically just rent some random game on the shelf or stick to licensed cartoons and movies. Not the best gaming habits. But on the switch to the N64 I picked up a subscription to Nintendo Power, the magazine to have at the time. It details all the latest, coolest titles, and while it did lead me in the wrong direction on occasion, I doubt I would have known about classics like Banjo-Kazooie, Ocarina of Time, and Pokemon.

Already I feel like the Angry Video Game Nerd as I write this, but let's continue anyway. NP reviewed Mischief Makers and made the game sound awesome, so I decided to rent it and tried it out. I loved it, though I never finished the game and never ended up buying it. Over 10 years later, I see this game in a retro gaming store, and decide it's time to finish it once and for all.

Now, I bet most "serious" gamers haven't even heard of Mischief Makers. That's...pretty reasonable, actually; the game sold poorly, and pretty much everything was against it in terms of sales. For one, it's a 2-D platformer at a time when games like Goldeneye and Mario 64 were pushing the abilities of video games. Also, you might recall that as the RPG era of Final Fantasy VII; games were expected to hold a player's attention for hours on end, and considering Mischief Makers is a pretty short game that only takes a couple of hours to beat, that's no surprise. Also, the game wasn't made by any of the big-name publishers; rather, Treasure made it. Treasure's an awesome company, don't get me wrong, but they don't have the same advertising power that a name like Nintendo, Sega, or Sony does. I'm sure the hideous box art didn't do the game any favors either.

So why bother talking about Mischief Makers? After all, it's just a tiny blip on the radar; a bird on a satellite dish. Everyone knows it's there, but they're going to ignore it for more important things. It's hardly an unappreciated gem trampled by mainstream gaming; since playing it I've found that a lot of the levels in the game simply aren't that fun. But for everything the game does wrong, it does something so unique, so creative, and so entertaining that it was worth trudging through the dull bits.

The game stars Marina Liteyears, an android who spends all her time saving the kidnapped Professor from the bad guys. The plot isn't what you would call complicated or deep, but hilarious cutscenes and quirky characters make you laugh again and again, though some bits are enough to make you shake your fist in the air and yell "Those crazy Japanese!" (such as when Marina manages to rescue the Professor, only for him to give her a celebratory grope). The graphics are highly stylized, and Marina herself would fit into any random anime series, though considering her and the Professor are the only two humans in the game, it's not as cliche as you would think.

As for the actual gameplay, it's a platformer, but with a different focus: grabbing things, shaking them, and throwing them (no, this isn't Mario 2). Marina can also hover a bit, and she often gets around by propelling herself off the things she grabs. Most enemies are disposed of by simply grabbing and throwing them. The main problem with the game is that a lot of it is just...dull. Most levels are just "run left to right" with no real challenge or goal, and some levels can literally be beaten in less than a minute on your first try. Not to mention the game is extremely generous with health, so even if you do find yourself cornered and taking damage, you're in no real danger.

But like I said, for every "run left to right" or "grab enemy and throw him repeatedly to win" level, there are other levels that kick insane amounts of ass. Fleeing a lava wave as it destroys the floor beneath you, climbing higher and higher in an unstable tower, a random level where you're riding an ostrich for no good reason, all sorts of crazy levels that are fun to play. And the boss fights, oh god. Some bosses are pathetic and leave you with a "was this level really necessary" feel. Other boss fights are undoubtedly a "10" on the epic meter. In particular, the fights with the trio of villains are possibly some of the best boss fights I've ever played, in tone, challenge, and the satisfaction of figuring out how to beat them. And how can you NOT love a villain whose catchphrase is "Through fire, justice is served!"

It may not have done well when it was first released, but I can't help but feel that Mischief Makers would be better received today. With the dawn of digital distribution, games like Symphony of the Night and Punch-Out are being rediscovered, while games like Braid and World of Goo are teaching gamers that a game doesn't need to be 3D or several hours long in order to be an engaging experience. The trend of more Japanese-styled games finding fanbases in the west also goes in Mischief Makers' favor, as well as the lack of platform games in this generation. If Treasure were to be released Mischief Makers on the Virtual Console, it could find the home it was once deprived of. And is it just me, or would the "shake everything" concept work really well with a Wii remote?

Whenever Marina shakes something, she goes "Shake shake!". Thanks to that, I've had "Shake shake, shake shake, shake it!" stuck in my head all week.

Final Fantasy VI (Advance)

Originally posted: June 24th, 2009

Final Fantasy VI is the most frustrating game I've played in a long time.

No, I'm not talking Ikaruga "Oh god this game is so hard why does it hate me so" frustrating.

I'm talking about the frustration of a perfectly epic, well-written game with a great cast of characters and a wonderful soundtrack, hampered by technical limitations and sometimes just poor game design. I don't want to say everyone who likes this game is wearing the rose-tinted nostalgia goggles, but the entire game I kept thinking how great this game would be if it were more like, say, Final Fantasy X. FFVI was ahead of its time, and sadly, it shows in every portion of the game.

Honestly, there really isn't anything major that keeps me from enjoying the game, but there are dozens of tiny annoyances that continue to pester me throughout the adventure. I keep finding myself thinking "I could do that in Persona 4; why can't I do it here?" Things like spells and items being labeled in-game so I don't have to keep Notepad open so I know what spells do what. After playing Chrono Trigger, I had forgotten what it was like to only be able to move in four directions, breaking the flow of the game as I try to figure out what square I'm supposed to be standing on in order to cross a bridge. And grid-based movement's best friend random encounters are back. However, it's not like the current days of gaming, where in-between battles you're given a good amount of time to walk further and explore before going into your next fight. But after each encounter in FFVI, it's usually only a few seconds until your next one, and many times I got into another battle after a single step. When I'm in a cavern and I see four ways out of the room I'm in, I do NOT want to have to deal with enemies every few seconds while I try to figure out which one is the exit. Not to mention, for about 3/4 of the game, battles consist solely of "Attack Attack Attack Attack", with no strategy involved whatsoever. Random encounters finally become interesting towards the end, though the rate at which they appear is still a pain.

Another aspect of the game you don't see much of these days is the World Map. You rarely see World Maps in games anymore. Know why that is? It's because they suck. FFVI has a world map designed to be 3D, but it's completely pointless because the map is completely flat. Mountains could have provided some interesting terrain while flying around, but even the mountains are just part of the carpet that's the world. And when you can't Fly? UGH. The world map is filled with so many routes that leave absolutely nowhere. If you think "Hm, I wonder if there's anything over here while I go to the next town", you're going to waste half an hour of your life. The World Map is pointless and superfluous, and most of the time you aren't going to find its secrets unless you have a guide at your disposal anyway. If you're going to do a World Map, do it right (Thanks, Dragon Quest VIII!)

Despite all this complaining, I did enjoy FFVI. The characters are interesting and well-developed, the soundtrack is probably among the best game soundtracks of all time, and the Magicite system of learning magic was truly addicting (though sad to say most of the spells you get are completely useless). Though...it's really a shame how un-user friendly this game is. Aside from the "you better know what that item does before you pick it" problem, it'd also be nice to know what enemies are weak to. In Persona 4, each time you attack an enemy with an element, the game records it, so every time you fight that enemy you can take a look at what worked and what doesn't. But all you get in FFVI is Libra, a spell that briefly tells you their weakness and expects you to memorize it forever. Not that it's that useful; unlike in Persona, all magic weaknesses do is more damage to the enemy, and you're better off just spamming Sabin's Blitz attacks, or have Edgar drill a hole in everything. More damage, doesn't use MP.

And finally, something that's pissed me off about all the Pre-FFVII Final Fantasy games: Amano art. I know he's a stylized artist, but his work just doesn't fit in with the games. Something's wrong when the character sprites have more charm than the artwork:

D'aw, that's cute.

Yech, what IS that thing?!

With Square's recent habit of remaking every game they've ever made, I'm sure a DS remake of FFVI is inevitable, though I'd prefer a full-3D Wii version. Updated graphics, gameplay, and full voice acting could turn a flawed classic into a true classic. Hey, it could happen. I guess for now I'm just going to have to try my luck with The World Ends With You, a TRUE modern RPG.

*plays it for half an hour*

How does the game expect me to dodge and fight enemies on both screens with two different control systems simultaneously? >_o

Persona 3 FES

Originally Posted: March 6th, 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJhnyVZMUsY

Sorry, just had to get that one out of the way.

Wow. Sheesh. All my close friends know that for the past 1 1/2 months of my life, I've been playing and talking about Persona 3 nonstop. I got the game at Christmas, but held off on playing it because I heard how frickin' long it was, and wanted to kind of get things out of the way, first. And I'm glad I did, because I put over 100 hours into this thing. 100 damn hours. I thought Tales of the Abyss was too long, and that game was only 45 hours. Most of the shooters I've been playing on the Xbox 360 lasted only a couple hours. Chrono Trigger was a solid 20, but that game's old-school. But the length doesn't matter; Persona 3 is one of the most creative, engrossing games I've ever played, with an interesting storyline, well-developed characters, a wonderful soundtrack, a battle system that puts most RPGs to shame, and way, way more anime cutscenes than you would expect.

That's not to say that the game is perfect. Far from it, actually; I can name tons of problems with it. The graphics are outdated, even among PS2 games, though I'm not sure how to feel about that. On one hand, it makes the cutscenes kind of boring to watch, compared to Final Fantasy X or Shadow Hearts: Covenant. But because of the graphics style, they probably allowed the developers to focus so much more on the other aspects of the game, specifically the immersive high-school-dating-sim bit. In fact, that's probably why I found such an interest in the game; we never get those here in the States. Dating sims are Japanese games, why would western gamers want them? Well, just for the sake of something different, I guess.

Already I can see this turning into incoherent rambling, so let me try to get my thoughts back on track. Persona 3's features include:

A minigame where you walk around on the beach trying to pick up chicks
A minigame where you try to avoid being spotted in a hot spring by chicks
Dating creepy women from an alternate dimension
Hanging out with some girl in an MMORPG within the game

You're probably thinking "That sounds awesome, I should play this now!" But if you happen to be a girl, you're probably thinking "What does this game have besides breasts?" Well, to start out, the main character is some blue-haired guy with an emo haircut. Unlike most silent protagonists, though, the player can shape this character however he wants. There's no good/evil bit, since there's still a main storyline to follow, but you do have the option to be a jackass if you want. Or a suckup. Hell, you could spend every day in the arcade playing video games, though that's not a good way to make friends. The whole point behind talking to people and helping them is that with each new social link you establish, your Persona get stronger.

Wait, what's a Persona? Well...it's a Pokemon. Sort of. I did accidentally call one a pokemon before, so I guess they're similar enough. Pretty much collectible spirits that aid you in battle. Speaking of battles, Persona 3 has a battle system that kicks the ass of every other RPG out there. You know how in most RPGs, you can hammer the "attack" command over and over and eventually get the result you want? Yeah, that won't fly here. Instead, Persona 3 has a battle system that relies heavily on exploiting enemy's weaknesses to certain elements, and your random encounters are much more difficult than in most games. It's all about killing them before they get a chance to attack. Yeah, the game's turn-based, but you can switch between your Persona once per turn, so as long as you're paying attention, you should have the right monster for the job. One thing that's odd is that the only character you can control is the main character. Yeah, a turn-based RPG with partner AI. Thought that was reserved for the action RPGs, huh? Well, the AI in the game is...sadly, one of the game's weaker aspects. Most of the time, it isn't an issue; while they might be more wasteful with their spells than you would like, they're typically smart enough to not screw you over in most fights, and you can give them general tactics to follow as well. However, during a select few boss fights, I DESPISED the AI for not being able to catch on to enemy attack patterns and ended up fighting a boss for an hour when I could have beaten him in 20 minutes if not for my retarded teammembers. In Persona 4 they fixed this problem by allowing you to control your entire party if you wanted, which could have saved me a lot of frustration.

Speaking of which, there's quite a lot of bit to do concerning your collectible Persona. There are some that you can obtain after battles, in the form of little cards, but other Persona you can only get by fusing other Persona together.

When you fuse, not only can you gain unique Persona, but certain skills can only be transferred over in the process, so it's worth it to build up your original Persona so the new one can come with lots of unique spells. However, the amount of spells a Persona can hold is limited, and sometimes it feels like you're fusing your best Personas only to get a worthless one instead.

So I've talked about the social and battle aspects of the game, but I think the reason it stands above and beyond the rest of gaming is the fact that Persona 3 has one of the strongest casts of characters I've ever seen in a game. All the characters are likeable yet very humanly flawed, and experience well-developed growth throughout the game. There's a bit of emo in there, but unlike, say, Tales of the Abyss's Luke, who spends half the game whining about how everything wrong in the world is his fault, these characters behave much how normal people would in response to their problems. It makes for a believable cast of characters who still have their little quirks and jokes that remind you that not everything in life is about dealing with your inner demons. The character who stood out to me most was Junpei; at the beginning of the game, I thought he was annoying and was sad to find out he was a main character. However, I felt he had the most well-developed growth of all the characters, and by the end of the game he was the most endearing to me.

So, saying "Persona 3 is the best game ever" is probably an overstatement; it's not for everyone; the game may be well-paced, but the length is still probably a turn-off for those without much free time. The Japanese nature of the game, where everybody has names like Yukari and Mitsuru, and use formalities like -senpai and -kun may be offputting to some people. However, fans of RPGs owe it to themselves to check Persona 3 out, because there really isn't anything like it.

Oh, and the extra epilogue chapter isn't nearly as good as the main game, but it's worth playing through anyway. Just be prepared to do nothing but grind.