Doonie's reviews.bin

[Idun]

I suppose I'll do one! Expect anti-rigor and rampant discursiveness from these. I'll try to wrap the entire game up in three paragraphs or so. I'm rating these games on a pass or fail scale. I'll put the rating for the game I've given it in the rankings thread for those who can't live without that silly point-scale.

Pass: any game that, with its shortcomings, is enjoyable to an unexplained degree. (>.>)
Fail: any game that, with its shortcomings, is excessively mindnumbing. (<.<)

Final Fantasy XII - PS2
Grade: Pass
(7.0)

   This is definitely not a game that lives up to the commercialized hype from Square-Enix. It was said to be a game that bridges old-schoolers and new-schoolers together. Yet, Final Fantasy XII appears to fuse together an anti-climatic storyline overshadowed by a lackluster group that frolicks around in massive environments. Regardless of its severe storyline and character downfalls, XII is still playable. Quite frankly, without the expansiveness of its gameplay, Final Fantasy XII would definitely fail.
   The storyline is something left to be desired. Initially a story that appeared to be steeped in foreboding and interesting plot-twists, it becomes a story of predictability through spurts of good scenes and boring scenes. Though, I do admit that during the latter part of the game, the good scenes outweighed the boring. Without spoiling anything [though I don't believe I'm saving anyone], perhaps it was the pacing that emphasized the issues. The story's pacing was slow. Come to think of it, it was difficult to create any "time" of the events in the game. With the increasing apprehensive nature of NPCs concerned with an outbreak of war, what I virtually did through exploration in the game seemed disconnected with the overarching story until reaching areas such as Golmore Jungle. The actual material and writing were beautiful. But the characters were empty. Ashe and Vaan specifically, for reasons of indecisiveness. The only outstanding characters that seemed independent, self-sufficient and perfectly motivated were Lord Larsa, Cid, Judge Gabranth, and Basch. Unfortunately, you're stuck with characters like Vaan and Penelo who are just tagalongs, yet frequent in main scenes adding nothing but corny or useless lines. They should not be allowed to speak at all. The ending seemed fruitless too, but I suppose it's perfectly justifiable in terms of the story's execution.
    Gameplay. The battle system is broken. Too frequently did I have to re-arrange my Gambits for my team members to do them in a timely fashion. The star quality to the Gambit system is not just simultaneous gameplay, but the removal of constant menu-ing. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Because you assign the Gambits in a numerical hierarchy, it appears that the percentages or effectiveness of them begins to stagger under certain conditions. For example, I made Penelo my primary mage. For some foggy reason, she would decide to attack a flying enemy with their weakpoint (the gambit was assigned at 6), yet my man Basch has about 650HP and is about to die. What? He dies? And she cancels her attack magic and decides to Arise him? What a waste of a move! It's also noticeable that team members with Gambits On have quicker attack initiative than the member you're manualing. The moves are cool, the magic is cool, and Quickenings are a Godsend to the initial 40 hours of trudging through dungeons upon dungeons with peaks and cracks of storyline. Battle is actually a drag then. It takes way too long to kill an enemy, and there's plenty of times where you may wind up in the wrong area and get clobberd.
      But, the system is essentially abuseable. Quickenings drastically increase your magic, and once you get the right Gambits and skills, battles become easy peasy. Boss battles are especially easy if you take interest in the best part of FFXII - its Hunt System. Not only do you get awesome items, great LP, great weapons, and plenty of loot to sell at the Bazaar to only get more awesome items and great weapons, but leveling isn't much of a concern because it comes about easily. Plus, with the experience gained from the Hunt System, once you finish the Archadia arc, I reckon that you can instantly go through the game and not have to grind in the least, because the bosses are absolutely no challenge. This is especially great, because it increases your exposure to the storyline, rather than a dungeon or exploration taking up too much time. Quickenings sort of become useless. Once I finished my 35th Hunt (that was the last hunt), I never used a Quickening again. They are a waste of MP usage, especially when you need a Gambit to Curaga someone with HP < 40% consistently. Anyway. It's definitely the Hunts that saved the game. Though I did enjoy going through every territory, I enjoyed it more when I obviously gained many good things from it. The imprint left from the Hunts is sort of odd though - there's plenty of times where I didn't even read the Hunt, but found the location, the person to talk to, killed it, got my shit and left.
       The music is . . . I'd say the music is unfortunate. Though there are some great pieces I'd recommend to anyone, its implementation in exploring was definitely in the background. I suppose this is because it is atmospheric, though atmospheric =/= bad. The pieces chosen, and the unimportance of the environment if it was transitional, just does not stick to my memory. The music started getting better towards the end of the game; it seems like everything started getting better towards the end of the game and it just ended! Voice acting was grand. Though I didn't prefer some particular voices, the intonations, speculations and etc expressed through tonal values and the accompanied accents worked very well. After thinking more about this game, I would really sort of fail it, but without ranting about how awesome the freedom was in exploring the environments and mechanisms to the Gambit system that weren't frustrating, I'll just leave you with a Pass. Everything was average, besides the story. Defintiely a playable game, but not exactly replayable unless you're a masochist.


Next game up . . . . . !
Infinite Undiscovery, once I beat it. >.>

[Idun]

Decided to leave some remarks about LR's OST.

Last Remnant Original Soundtrack
Composer: Tsuyoshi Sekito
Pass/Fail Scale: Fail

           
                I've never played Last Remnant. This gave me a larger interest in its soundtrack as I'm incapable of judging it based on in-game use. Some may consider that a hindrance to successfully rating it, but I consider it a blessing. I'm 100% under the impression that soundtracks that are impressive standalone are doubly impressive in-game. The three-disc original soundtrack staggers in quality, but manages to pull off some very intriguing tracks. Never thoroughly exposed to Sekito's works [besides some MGS/FFIIIDS/etc], the patterened quality of the musician is to be ignored too.
               The soundtrack starts off average. Disc 1 has the more uninteresting pieces. Unfortunately, some of the longer tracks such as Clash of Opposites tend to drag on repetitively within the first few seconds. Clash of the Opposites is a very interesting example for two parts: the guitar in the background moves very slow, but the drums move very fast. It's not a bad song, per se. But the shortness of each frame piece is noticeable because of those two dominant sounds. Into the Depths, which I would believe would be dungeon music or foe FMV music, seems to escape the repetitiveness that Clash of the Opposites has by elongating the varying sounds. This is good, because this is one of the more memorable tracks on Disc 1. The Young Marquis is in the same boat as Into the Depths - two very good tracks unexpected for Disc 1. It is probably one of the few non-battle themes that had a distinct hook from the others.
                Disc 2. Gateway to the West. This is the only track I remember being able to pin instantly. It's not a completely unique song; the sound is definitely something that can be traced in other RPG musics. It is still good though. Disc 2 pulls off some better tracks, such as the aforementioned Gateway to the West, The Seat of the Vulcan, The Marshalls, The Crumbling Fortress, etc. This is unexpected from what Disc 1 had to offer. The music also seems to hook together in atmosphere and mood unlike Disc 1, though it still suffers from random less-than-one minute tracks of a different tone.
                Disc 3 is my favorite. I'd pick and choose songs, such as Hermeien's Ultimatum, or Echoes of the Past*, but I can fortunately say that Disc 3 has music that has the potential of ingraining itself in your brain. For some tracks though, they still tend to fail (One Step). This brings me into questioning why exactly the songs I didn't like, failed. It may or may not be for the manner in which the songs affect me, but Sekito seems to be using a bit too much rockish noises. This isn't particularly bad . . . but the range of the songs seems to vary only slightly per song. At least the speed. That or the music is just acrimonious. The battle songs don't fit well into the other atmosphere of the tracks, so you have to pick and choose which songs to listen to or make a playlist because the noise is unexpected. For example, the transition between Labyrinth, One Step, and The Warden and the Activator is just poor and unexpected.
               Regardless of Disc 1's fail, and the good music that can be found on both Disc 2 and 3 of The Last Remnant, this OST receives a fail from me. Why? This isn't a soundtrack I would suggest someone invest monetarily in, especially when the listener is almost obligated to skip many of the uninteresting tracks. The arrangements of songs and the severe change in pace between many of them (specifically where tracks surround the battle or ominous themes) makes it a difficult one to listen to. Perhaps the issue is not present while playing the game, but this is definitely a below average and fail standalone soundtrack. Not one to overlook though, compared to a lot of the other messes I've listened to.

_{Definitely one of my favorite tracks on the entire soundtrack.}

[Idun]

Digital Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner - PS2
Grade: Fail
(1.0)


           As a disclosure note to all of those Mega Ten fans out there, this is my first game beat by the team. I've had experience with Persona 2, but I'm leaving that foggy creature behind. It appears that these games pride themselves in gameplay as the battle system and customization is much more engaging than the storylines. However, what DDS distastefully presented was game with little to no storyline, exhausting and useless battling along with trudging through some of the most frustrating dungeons I could think of off the top of my head. Let's start with Digital Devil Saga's story. What story? No story. Your undeveloped, shadowed characters spend the majority of their time trying to achieve Nirvana while growing a "familiar" attachment with a horrible female lead named Sera. Absolutely nothing is certain in the storyline as Sera has no clue of her purpose, yet her ability to sate the demons' hunger becomes vital in achieving their goals. Too many intimations with little grounding for gamers reduce the chances of making any logical conclusions. Perhaps if the writers took less of an interest in making a bullshit storyline for the sake of making an RPG, and focused less on what is to come in the sequel, perhaps DDS' story would have a fighting chance. But no. There's absolutely no incentive to acknowledge the piss poor lines in this game, because even with the shoddy ass ending of the game, many important things are left in the air. Though I hear good things about DDS2, why do I want to play a game where it appears that the writers fucking suck? Do I really want to sequel-myself into something like that?
            As for the battling. I can appreciate the fact that this game does not warrant instant button mashing without any consequences. The fact that surviving boss battles or random encounters relies on your attention to enemy weaknesses and your vulnerabilities certainly adds another element to its battling. Even the Mantra system which is extremely simply and inadequate influences your engagement in battles. The system is inadequate because of the invested amount of Atma points you put into learning skills doesn't necessarily reflect strongly in battles. I did fine in Coordinate 136 without having any high level elemental skills. It was also easy for the system to appear at a standstill in regards to the amount of atma points you would get at the end of battles around that dungeon. Dyne skills really are the maker and breakers, but if you're investing two teammates in attack elemental skills, how would you have the foresight to discover many of the latter bosses having moves that require Null Nerve/Panic or Void Null/Panic (granted, the Nulls are very easy to get). The encounter rate is extremely high which only emphasizes the repetitiveness of battles. Once you discover the enemy weaknesses, there really isn't anything else to battling. Also, what is the purpose of transforming back into a human? Absolutely nothing !! Even being a high level though I didn't tweak my Mag stat as I'm told I should have, some random battles left me either dead or hanging on a thin line because of hackiness on the enemy's AI part (such as the enemies in Sahasrara who will sleep you, then kill all who sleep. What the FUCK, especially after having moved around the crappy linear dungeon -- but no so linear because of its poorly implemented and completely useless blue walls and floors that only made you succumb to more of the game's encounter rate and stupid battles - and not having saved? Yeah, frustrating).
           Despite the shitty and constantly forced down your throat gameplay, the music and design looks very well. At least for the characters. . .  come to think of it, the design wasn't that great. Especially for the dungeons. Too many times did I feel like I was in the same area. The music is fantastic and very engaging, and loud. Perhaps this loudness kept me more attentive to the utter bull I was trying to trudge through, and I appreciate that. The art direction has a very good feel to it. The colors seemed to go well with the mundane surroundings. But a game can only be stared at for its attractiveness for so long 'til it starts blending into the backgrounds. I don't think I'll ever, ever, ever play this game again. And after baking on how I feel for this game, I equate its bullshit to the same level of frustration as Summoner's battle system.

_{I clocked 40 hours with the game. A good 15 hours were wasted by letting the game idle because it was hard to concentrate on it.}

[Idun]

Shadow Hearts From the New World - PS2
Grade: Pass
(6.0)

      
             The Shadow Hearts series, though an extremely limited series, has its good, bad and ugly characteristics. Having officially played the entire series, the storyline quality dwindles systematically per installment, but the gameplay definitely increased in options. Coming in this game with reservations from the muck that Shadow Hearts Covenant had with its annoying female lead, read: my overly emotional Yuri-Alice fangirl rant on Karin, shoddy battle system and encounter rate issues, I sort of perceived that this game would definitely be incomparable to Shadow Hearts. Oddly enough, it still isn't, even with its better options in its battle system and customization, because it is an extremely unbalanced game. However, it definitely gets a Pass because of its gameplay, ignoring its seemingly absent storyline with a mindless, and naïve cast. From the New World, despite its somewhat contemporaneous setting, leaves a lot to be desired for the storyline.
              It's a fairly disappointing storyline. You're operating as a detective, who takes on all forms of jobs named Johnny. One would believe that a detective had a sense of logic to their thought process. This is undoubtedly incorrect for this character. Despite the shoddy appearance of a random client who comes in, that Johnny cannot even locate with people dying, a random fusion-changing woman meeting him, and a monster creation lab in Gilbert's office, Johnny doesn't detect any malpractice whatsoever. . .  Equally so is the extremely one-tracked totally fallible female lead Shania, who is clearly an indigenous fetishized representation of a woman by game developers clearly with this fetish, only in the story as filler to take off her clothes for absolutely no reason with Sailor Moon music in the background. It is quite unfortunate to the intelligence of the character bandwagon for them allowing her to assume to the role of leader in their group. But they're all fairly useless anyway. Natan is a bodyguard, first and last. No characterization whatsoever. Hilda, perhaps the only character with the most character [though clearly schizophrenic] truly has no motivation to tag along with the team, but who would be motivated with its bullshit story anyway? Mao, the cat, is definitely filler and there for entertainment though the humor plops in every execution besides Meowmenator, which isn't even Mao. Frank . .  is an old confused man seeking adventure with humor unequal to his age who attempts to have the gestures and pizzaz of Christopher Walken and thoroughly fails at it. This entire, capable group follows Lady and some renknowned serial killer conveniently named Killer (who isn't exactly scary at all) to stop them. Stop them from what? Nothing. They just want to kill Lady, because uh, Shania wants to kill Lady. But no, in the last two hours of the game, there is story! Some of it good, some of the plot twist (even if hinted) were bullshit because they seem completely irrelevant to the last two hours of the game since the characters still planned to execute their original plan. Not to mention Lady was a silent antagonist, loosely, and her characterization came from blank unimaginable stares. The ending sucked and the parallelism, what is left of it, of Lady and Killer to Alice and Yuri is distasteful considering the 5% of characterization in the game. Anyway. Bullshit. That can be ignored though, with some of its interesting side arcs like McManus or end game questing.
                Best part to the game is its gameplay. Yes, that includes music, battling, character customization and dungeons. What Covenant tried to perfect with team combos is definitely more fluid in FTNW. Character execution is shorter; there is less of a lag time between moves, enemies and whatever menu'ing you end up doing. Fusions is still there, and definitely a good way to have some good skills early in the game, but definitely not on the same level of Yuri SH awesomeness. I found comboing less of a chore and more of something to limit battles to under a minute or so. There is not much grinding necessary, I'd say in the game, because the bosses definitely have patterns and if you understand that vacuuming their faces off to remove stock that'll kill you, comboing them and understanding height combos and increased damage wins, everything is easy peasy. Unlike their lameness incorporated in-story, the characters are actually useful in battle. Who to use is debate-able, but if you just stare at stats, you'll understand quickly who you'll never have to use in the game, ever. This is clearly Mao and Frank. But Frank is especially useful in pit fights with requirements for high numbered combos. Either way, I found the battles to be extremely simultaneous, with a fair encounter rate that was not frustrating. Dungeons were especially short room-wise, but required some puzzles. Thankfully the puzzles aren't elongated fetch and go like the previous installments. UMA hunts are debatable. The way battling is set up, it is extremely easy to quickly own enemies and have little frustration factors and an uncertainty of having to restart your game. The most dissatisfying aspect to it, was, of course the Judgement Ring. This isn't because of difficulty hitting the critical areas. It is the fact that the developers were clearly uninterested in creating different patterns, so gamers are stuck with the same ring they've been hitting for a long time (throughout the majority of the game until you get more Ring fragments).
          The music of the game is satisfactory. I can't pick out a specific track name that stood out, but I never remember wanting to mute my game and opt for some other music. The US battle music is better than the tribal beat added once you start entering temples. Alcatraz's music was definitely different, and in a good way. No cacophany here. The character designs were horrible, besides Johnny. It seems like the only "American" is represented tastefully. You can't compare much to a cat, two naked Natives (WHAT ALL NATIVE AMERICANS LOOK THE SAME?), a vampire and an old, odd Ninja. . . the voice acting sort of sucked, not because of execution, but I didn't like any of the voices the characters had. Best example of good voice acting it had was in the last 30 minutes with a rant from your favorite professor. I am not a fan of how they rendered the figures compared to other Shadow Hearts games, and the lack of clarity in-towns and whether you'll step out of the town or not through first exploration, but all in all, it's an all right game. Good thing it has Game Plus, though I don't know the effects of it since I haven't replayed it, but I don't believe I'd re-start from scratch. The Dollhouse wasn't even as cool and demented as in the others. Malice seemed so much toned down in this that I wouldn't even consider it a Shadow Hearts game unless it had fusions and the Judgement Ring. But it had that. All is well.

[Niu]

I just want to say... you could have say more bad things about Last Remnant's soundtrack.

[Idun]

Yeah, for music OSTs, I'm going to go back after having played some of the game. I already felt weird for rating it and not playing it. It is pretty short and dearth eh?

[Idun]

Suikoden V - PS2
Grade: Win
(10.0)


                               It's been a while since I've had this racy feeling. You know, that sort of feeling when something dear to you starts pumping you up, but you're weary about ranting because of the fear of fanaticism. It's been quite a while - back during the 1990s, that a game has astonished me so much with its polish. Notably, this feeling was definitely exclusive from the Playstation 2. And it feels good. Suikoden V's masterful storyline is not the only unique quality that sets it off among many other RPGs. The hours and hours that can be poured into quality gameplay, with a soundtrack that appears to have no significant downfalls certainly outfits Suikoden V in a picturesque masterpiece. Having just got off my high playing the game, I cannot put a finger on a significant repulsive fault that makes Suikoden V unplayable. I'm told that the storyline starts off slow, but the slowness does not beget poor quality. No, no. The slowness allows for the awesome dialogue and level of exploration to dig slowly under your skin and situate itself there.
                              Definitely not a story that can or will be summed up in this review, Suikoden V manages to present multiple overarching themes and executes them with terrific dialog and casting. Playing directly as the Hero (as usual for Suiko games), the game lays very important foundational details that emphasize the immediacy of the  issues Sol-Falena and other inhabitants are striving for or dealing with. It is done with  tons of intrigue, by not limiting the explicitness of projected enemy/comrade motives and having the characters produce logical responses to their environments. For example, Queen Arshtat and Ferid's reluctance in boldly responding to the nobility's lust for control in the Senate, Sol-Falena and for the Sun Rune certainly strikes a cord because the all-powerful Queen and Commander should be capable of diminishing them. But there are dire consequences, they acknowledge this, and plays along with the Senate in hope for indirect settlement. The Godwin cause can equally be empathized, though their actions are definitely questionable. Barow's actions are dually understandable. The story is full of different opinions that make sense, yet their actions certainly speak for themselves as the responses of Falena's citizens emphasize this. Personally, playing a mute character definitely has its reserved qualms because of the way characterization has stifled the main character due to the lack of actual dialog. However, I cannot seem to fault the Hero (who I named Charles) as the choices they give you to respond to significant issues changes the storyline, and does not actually respond to inevitability. This is nice. It submerges the gamer's involvement more directly into the storyline and opens or closes many different pathways to experiencing a different storyline, depletes the hackneyed fetch-and-go solely by other characters' statements and defintely adds to the gameplay. With 108 characters + more, it seems as if there would be a definite negligence of characterization for MANY. However, I can only instantly think of three characters, all plot or non-plot involved, that didn't receive some level of characterization and remained static due to lesser background (Gavaya, Byakuren HSSSSS, and Wilhelm). Even a little beaver named Meroon (I believe? Maroon, Muroon, Miroon. . . .) who solely sings "Nuuuoooh~" receives characterization through dialgog involving important characters to her. It's just amazing that, in a game with an overwhelming pack where the PCs and NPCs play their roles very well, there doesn't seem to be an overwhelming presence of fail. Sure, there are characters whose character I totally despised, such as Alenia and Zahak, the failed Queens Knights of Faildom, but the quality is still there. The storyline is immense, engaging, and prevalent even with the amount of gameplay that the gamer can do.
                     I suppose the battle system is something that can or cannot be an acquired taste. It's pretty simplistic, and the formation skills you can obtain through exploration certainly breaks the game. I can't forsee why anyone would struggle with Suikoden V's battle system, including its equipment, battle and magic skills leveling. The books are pretty obscure to reach SS level rank, but I don't find them necessary in beating the game [though they're still acquire-able, especially if you simply want to beat the crap out of a certain Barows member]. You are not exposed to many different enemies, so if you have an issue with seeing a Skeleton in one dungeon and an upgraded Skeleton in another Sindar Ruins, you're more than likely to be disappointed. All the SP you gain with characters you project to never use again can be simply tossed into the SP bin for characters you find more invaluable in battle. Definitely a flexible system. Battles are not, and should not, be long. Powerleveling isn't even necessary. After being recommended the Circle Tactic after Sable, I never used another battle tactic again. Not exactly a battle system that can be hyped for its innovation, it's definitely doable and lacks any level of frustration for me at least. Auto originally fails, because of your characters lack of battle development and team members not taking down enemies, but just attacking (plus the Auto options fail during this point), but it becomes a very good choice to choose in the latter game when you're scrounging up all your 108 Stars if possible, or visiting places that doesn't require blinking back to Viki.
                     The 108 Stars. I am told I am very lucky. If you are a completist, getting the 108 Stars without a FAQ will probably be impossible. This would definitely be a downside to the game. However, I am lucky and I have no complaints since I spend the majority of my time visiting villages when I don't need to. I believe it is necessary to have 108 Stars if you love Lyon*** and get a joyous ending, but hey. The endings are all online if you feel stifled. How you perform in the awesome duels/war battle outcomes are all online too. But I suppose if you live in a cave, these aspects of Suikoden V would definitely frustrate you. I don't know if I would exactly fault the duel/war system or choices you can make to get premature endings. But I WOULD fault 108 Stars, as the system in Suikoden III was definitely all-user friendly.
                      Suikoden V's art style was something I personally needed to get accustomed to. The design was not bad. But I suppose it was much more the camera capability and resolution that sort of peeved me at the beginning of the game. The furthest distance away, everyone looked like blocks of color. Close up, everyone looked blocky. I came to assume that this was definitely a design choice more than a graphics capability choice, as the sprites with their beautiful watercolored prints looked fabulous in cinematic scenes, as did their avatar designs in text boxes. The designs of the towns were not blocky either as detail could be seen from any magnitude. I am not a particular fan of some of the outfits the characters wore as I found it difficult to discern their regional uniqueness (besides Raftfleet). Otherwise, they all considerably appeared to be from the same place, despite the Royalty jazzy outfits and the dearth Lordlake presentation.
                    I cannot begin to describe the awesomeness of Suikoden V's soundtrack. Every track is bold, and easily memorable due to its presentation in and out of plot-important pieces. There was one track that definitely didn't level up to the awesomeness of the entire track, and it was some change in the random battle music that should have never been changed. Otherwise -- awesome. Raftfleet is one of my particular favorites, as is the music from Armes and the Island Nations. Haud was even interesting, with its odd meter and wacky snippet sounds. And with some of the load times in Suikoden V, hearing that awesome music is a great way to make them seem like less than 5 seconds of black screen. It has a great presentation in-game. Out of game it is good standalone too, besides some of the more serious tracks that are used during Godwin screen action. The war battle theme could have been redundant, but I found it very important and well-paced for the magnitude of battles. The dueling theme--! Yes, this also brings up a good point. The dueling theme is very simplistic, and has a very steady meter with not too many sounds in it, but it fits the events like a glove. It's actually pretty repetitive though. Good thing it does not last that long. Also! There's many things to do, such as farm, cook, get fish, race dragon horses, play card games, etc etc etc, and more et cetera! Quick sentence. Great stuffs, great games - I'm happy I wasn't too discursive and ranty for I could rant for hours in details~ Nuuuoooooh~
^{*** I don't want to spoil too much. But. I loved Lyon. Adorable. Stern. Adorable. Empathetic. I mean, c'mon.}


              

[Idun]

Ah, crap. Forgot I didn't do an Infinite Undiscovery review. I'll get to that in a few days as I'm scatterbrained and played the game at intervals.

[Idun]

Infinite Undiscovery - Xbox 360
Grade: Pass
(7.0)


                          I am a tri-Ace fan through and through. I was much more vehement and fanservicy back in the early century, but I was certainly excited to play a tri-Ace RPG on the 360, because I thought it would be um, good for once. There were a few technical issues in the game that could have easily been corrected I believe, and some of these issues take away from the enjoyment factor. I'd say the learning curve is fairly short and small, but control figuration and button mapping definitely takes time getting used to as I believe every button is used on the controller in this game. The storyline is acceptable as is a lot of the characterization that has been done well, but it sort of quicktails into "what?" during the last 10 minutes of dialog. Infinite Undiscovery is a game that clearly shows it shortcomings, but it is playable, and playable always gives my brain a sense of calm.
                         The storyline surrounds a flute player named Capell who was arrested for being Sigmund, a faction leader attempting to break all the chains of the moon that ensare the Earth. Capell is broken out of jail by supporters of the faction, and after a bit of hooha, Capell later joins the faction. The story initially is one of simply follow-the-leader Sigmund, though there is meat tossed into the fray. For example, the chains cause blight and famine to inhabitants of the world, and the chains are imposed by the Order of the Chains led by the Dreadknight and are also understood as ensaring the moon. The moon grants the people prosperity and a gift called Lunaglyphs which embue the wielder with special powers, longer lives and a higher rank in society. It's given to children when they are born, but if they are born by lunar eclipse they are considered unblessed. Nothing more can be said about the story that will not spoil, but there is definitely an interesting dichotomy between the classes of unblesseds and blesseds that are played through really well, and emotionally. Many of the characters are somewhat passable for human in what they'd say under the story's circumstances. Therefore, the initial lameness of Capell character and Aya's somewhat annoying brashness help to develop them into some of the better quality characters in the game. Perhaps Edward's characterization matches their quality as he later becomes one of the few characters with a nice noggin' on their shoulders. I can't really think of any characters I disliked. There's many PCs and NPCs (but are in your team) that are introduced in the game, but they're still memorable by whatever lines they say. Wait. Komachi's sidekick -- I forget her name? Yeah, she's one of the few characters full of fail who join to join because someone else did. The ending of the game made me drop this game down from an 8.0 to 7.0 as it really sucks and doesn't wrap ANYTHING up even though it shows you what characters are doing.
                            Ah. The battle system. Now this is what I like. Of course there are things such as Item Creation, skill creation, stat increases from items, cooking, smithery and etc by specific characters which add to the plethora of things you can do in battle. But. Actually playing the game is simultaneous and fun. The game is fully real time. That means, if you're an idiot, while you're fighting you might create an item and get pulverized by an enemy. Or, once you've finished destroying some troops, you quickly have Rucha make your team something to eat. Or, around a corner you spot extremely annoying enemies and decide to have Capell increase his strength by 20 points, Def+5, etc. Who knows? The choice--is yours. Skills are mapped to two buttons, commands are mapped to others to make designated AIs do specific thing. Quick note: the AI and AI options are intelligent for once as they saved MY ass plenty of times when I just rush into a big group of enemies and die. Equipped skills level up, though leveling them up is extremely slow. Anyway. To actual battles. I still don't know the 360's Dpad and I go from patterning clearly, but in order to do physical attacks, you use the lower two buttons. Pressing them consecutively once, twice, three times or holding creates different combos or doesn't a special move. You're able to counter and freeze an enemy with the L2 button. At times, if you have your AI on Combo, the entire area will turn into a colorful mess and you won't necessarily be able to discern where you are exactly, but it's a good thing the game has auto-target within vicinity or else that would have been extremely frustrating. Capell can sheath and unsheath his sword (you need to unsheath your sword to open treasure boxes which can become annoying because if they are mimics, they will kill you). Connecting to a team member to do a specific move or get the team advantage (basically a surprise attack lower the enemy's DEF increasing your ATK+AP accrual) is a spiffy aspect to the game to. It's as if they took SO3's battle system (and SO4's from the look of it), and made it a completely free roaming game. I like it. I like all of the characters' unique skills too (though I can't say the same for the mages).
                            Music? Motoi Sakuraba. Nothing else to say. Once you've heard one, you've heard it all. Not a bad OST at all, but. . .  definitely nothing that stands out. NOW for the technical issues! Other than trying to self-target enemies (I turned auto target on) and get a mind splitting headache, the VOICE acting and SOUND. On the first disc of the game, the sound goes in and out or sounds scrappy. I don't know if this is exclusive to my copy as it was a Used copy, but playing it on two different TV screens is at least telling me it's not the TV. Voice acting does NOT match up with the words for 70% of the game making the cutscenes appear as if they're lagging. You can get stuck in corners and pulverized by an enemy with no chance of moving. In one of the first larger dungeons that I can't remember, when moving onto a new screen you'll be walking into a black abyss that will segment and load slowly into the actual dungeon. Either my 360 or game disc or developmental lag problems. I can't remember any other major technical issues that stand out, but those certainly are annoying. Luckily this game's battle system is above average (and yes, enemies do have weaknesses, but for the majority of the game, you don't need to know them~) that keeps it afloat with its okay storyline. Otherwise, it'd be more frustration that enjoyment.

Yes, the soundtrack is that fleeting. I don't care to cover it at all.

[Idun]

Aaahhh, I need to write a Kingdom Hearts 2 one. D:

To do list:
Review FFXIII OST once it is released and in my hands
Lost Odyssey review once I beat it
Last Remnant Update
Kingdom Hearts 2 review, in no specific order.

[Idun]

Kingdom Hearts 2
(10.0)
Exceptional – Win

*Spoilers for story are in this
I vividly remember hearing the scathing news of Disney dipping its decisive feet into the RPG gaming pool with Square™/Square-Enix™/P Diddy™/Sean Puffy Combs™/Puffy™. I also vividly remember mocking, mimicking, flaming and sarcastically subverting Disney’s storytelling prowess by sallying their characters I loved and age groups who willfully and shamelessly expressed their excitement for it. ‘Tis a shame. Maybe I caught the holy ghost, or maybe I was a sheep following those elitists on boards who consistently pushed for shitty and poorly executed games like Final Fantasy VIII, X, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne (wait just a darn second – this game had a storyline? Shock!), when in reality, they just sucked.

Jesus decided to spend a couple minutes with me, heart to heart, to chastise my self-instituted ignorance and I’m here to rectify my passed assholery. Kingdom Hearts 2 improves on everything that Kingdom Hearts did well: story presentation and battling. That means that despite some of Kingdom Heart’s excessive puerile scenes, Kingdom Hearts 2 balances a storybook tale and injects more maturity into Disney’s established characters. Perhaps Disney’s established characters were granted with more maturity because their essential full tales were discontinued in the first installment for the sake of moving onto the main storyline. But I digress, let me make a fairly superficially outlined review with a rehashed format.

Without examining much consideration of Kingdom Hearts universe plot or to Kingdom Hearts: Chains of Memories for the DS, Kingdom Hearts 2 starts off with the happy life of Roxas. Sora’s character is slumbering in a laboratory because of issues from exploration in Chains of Memories. Nonetheless, I was sort of pissed not being Sora. I don’t read the premises for games anymore, and didn’t know the truth of Roxas’s character until I delved further into the story; but, there is one thing I can’t blindly deny due to fangirlism and it’s the storytelling.

One of the main themes of Kingdom Hearts 2 surrounds the the idea of world and physical belonging. Roxas happens to be the quintessential character in eliciting this theme. He is a Nobody, who exists in the shell of a person who lost their heart to Darkness, and balances the discourse Nobody-Run-Organization XIII’s idealistic endeavors in Kingdom Hearts to rectify their shortcomings, while also realizing that owning a heart should not stipulate whether one is sanctioned to live. After some key plot scenes, he blends with Sora, and Sora unknowing of Roxas’s existence, hops along his merry way to find Kairi. Though they make Sora completely flippant and oblivious in Kingdom Hearts 2, it is really Roxas’s character, Axel, Riku Mickey, Donald, Goofy that shine when they get their window of opportunities. One would say that since Roxas and Sora blended together, that Sora would essentially be a shining character but I disagree! Roxas, in his incomparable minutes on-screen manages to outshine Sora greater than all 120 stars from Super Mario 64. I feel the need to escape explaining the storyline in depth because of disconnects between it compared to the Kingdom Hearts canon. However, I can note that Sora manages to appear even more oblivious and still childish despite all the characters maturing in age.

But the battling is where Kingdom Hearts 2 scores all of its club scout points. Exploration, Gummi Ship customization – all of those can be scrapped in terms of mentioning the battle system. Though I hear there is dissent to this opinion, KH2’s battle system is the best out of the series. It is better than Kingdom Hearts, KH 358/2, god forbid anything isn’t better than Chains of Memories . . . Right. Anyway, because the series relies heavily on the archaic hack-and-slash style which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it adds a bit more slash to its style. It makes it stylish, rather. This covers up the constant hacking, random Magic use and redundancy fairly well. The triangle button becomes a vital piece as Sora (I believe, through the skill of Roxas) is able to evade – and not just block – and to counterattack! – during boss and regular battles. It becomes an invaluable button as it takes out a good chunk of damage. The catch-22 is that because it is a reflexive button, you have to time or realize the patterns of your enemies in order to effectively press it in time when it pops up on the screen. It’s easy peasy. It really is. The bosses pretty much stick to a linear attack pattern as do the enemies, and to be frank – you can press it interchangeably in case you don’t pick up the pattern easily, which increases your chances of still counterattacking. The triangle button also makes battles seem more simultaneous. We all favor simultaneity, right?

Sora is capable of equipping various keyblades with different attributes, that also have a Limit mode exclusive to them. In short, there’s Magic, Attack and later a combination of the both. Unfortunately Magic doesn’t become useful until you’re near the mega computer story arc (because Magic jettisons beams at enemies, therefore allowing you to attack further away and save your ass), but Attack and the later combination are invaluable. Each have their different stats and effects. Equipment is extremely similar to the first Kingdom Hearts, so understanding it is below rudimentary. I found that I received less AP-related items to increase equipment in this installment. This was not too bad until I realized that Goofy got spaces slower than Donald. But besides the usual trio, when you enter worlds, the main character joins your party and you have even more unique skills and Limits that you can do. It just keeps adding on to the foundation that Kingdom Hearts laid out.

Exploration is not anything particularly special. Unfortunately you do not have many worlds to choose from, so I suppose that is why developers added multiple story arcs to each planet. At least the multiple story arc requirements allow for you to pretty much see a quick and short resolution to each planets’ issues, IE no more Emo Beast . . . well. I don’t digress, but as I was thinking about emo, the DO have a completely and utterly useless planet and that’s Atlantis. All you do is sing, and if I wanted to play a singing game, it would be Parappa tha Rappa. The music is especially nice and the graphics are much more solid making it easier on the eyes. But the most important thing about Kingdom Hearts 2 is that it is a definitely playable game, that it added more lights and bells to the actual battle system which was a main grievance of mine in the first installment, and the storyline was not too Alice in Wonderland anymore. 10/10. A game that I could easily recommend to someone realizing that they have little chances of hating it is a go in my book.