Final Fantasy X review

 I believe that Final Fantasy X is the last game from Square that is really, awesomely good. It was all downhill after they joined Enix, in my opinion (I hope Final Fantasy XIII redeems them). Even FF12 was only average, to me. Anyway, this game is fantastic. Why? Well, let's find out!

Graphics (score 10/10): The graphics are really excellent for the PS2. I believe this game boasts the second-best graphics on the PS2, next to Final Fantasy XII. Although FFXII has the technically better graphics, FFX has much more creative and unique environments, so it's more graphically impressive to me. I guess it's kind of the difference between staring at a shimmering forest made out of crystalline trees and filled with iridescent swirls of light versus a big field filled with...grass...and just grass. So, FFX makes very good use of the graphical capabilities that it does have.

Music (score 10/10): Excellent, just excellent. The music is really quite beautiful, with my favorite song being "To Zanarkand". I even went and bought the soundtrack. And yes, I even like the song "Otherworld", which I've heard some people hated. Now, as for the voice acting... I thought it was great. Why do so many people hate on the voice acting for this game? I really can't figure it out. Other than the scene where Tidus and Yuna engage in fake laughter (it's cringe-worthy, trust me, but at least it doesn't last very long), the voice acting is top notch. I really found no faults with it. If you want to hear truly awful voice acting, listen to some scenes from the first Grandia game (on a side note, I got slaughtered with unhelpful votes for my review on that game; go figure).

Characters (score 10/10): Characterizations are excellent; everyone has a distinct personality and is well-portrayed. I know that everyone likes to complain about Tidus being a "crybaby" and whatnot, but I don't really think that's the case. To me, he's a realistic protagonist. With Final Fantasy 7 and 8, you had protagonists who were already used to battle, and who already had military training. It makes sense that they were used to dealing with stress (whether they actually handled that stress well is arguable, though, but that just makes them that much more interesting as protagonists). Tidus is just an average guy who is suddenly thrown into extraordinary events. In this light, I think his reactions (and subsequent narrations) are very realistic and appropriate for his character. I mean, he was living the good life before (he was a star athlete and living well, for the most part); why wouldn't he be unhappy about getting thrown into a world, which, through his eyes, must've seemed very inferior to what he just came from?! In fact, if he had immediately adopted a hung-ho, "this is so much fun" attitude, I would have found it very questionable. That being said, if he had been excessively whiney, it would've been annoying, but I don't really think that he is. As for the other characters, they all have subtle nuanced personalities, with the standout character being Yuna. So much of the story has to do with her, and she is extremely well developed. I love the fact that this game actually gives us a female character who is quiet, mature, and actually wears clothing that covers her breasts. Seriously, I get so sick of game developers thinking that all female characters must show cleavage, so it's awesome that Yuna actually has a real personality and isn't just eye candy. Not that eye candy is always bad or anything, it's just that I like to have some variety. I really love Yuna though because she is such a strong character without being a stereotypical gun-toting bad-ass female. She simply has a strong will and is dedicated to her morals and beliefs without being closed-minded. To me, she embodies what a "strong female character" should be rather than what Hollywood thinks that term means (ex. Large busted, cleavage exposing woman who wields guns). Once again, I have nothing against seeing that kind of portrayal once in a while, but there needs to be other kinds of heroines too. Too bad they ruin the good thing that they have going here in X-2, the sequel (see my review of that if you want to see how they screw over these fine characters). Whew, enough of my soap box. Overall, I think the characters are excellent, and yes, I even loved Tidus.

Story (score 10/10): This game's story is just awesome. It's one of the best RPG stories ever told, in my opinion. At its core, it's about a group of people coming to question the things that they have always believed in. I really enjoyed the themes of questioning traditional power structures and religious doctrine that is in place in the world of Spira, as well as themes of sacrifice, death, and hope. I don't know if the developers intended this, but you could almost interpret this story to be critique of real-world religions. The game even deals with the idea of prejudice in it's portrayal of the Al-Bhed. On top of these fine thematic elements, the plot keeps you engaged with various twists, culminating with the biggest twist of all at the end of the game. I'm not going to spoil that just in case you haven't played this game, but suffice it to say, it was so emotionally gripping that I actually cried at the end. Well, the story is awesome. What more can I say?

Battle System (score 10/10): The battle system is pretty unique compared to previous Final Fantasy games. Of course, I'm not talking about the turn-based fights; they're pretty similar. I'm talking about the ability to switch party members in the middle of battle. In previous FFs, you pretty much picked a party of three people and stuck to them, never using any other characters. In FFX, they actively discourage this by making each party member have very specific strengths and weaknesses, and having a variety of enemies that require everyone's skills. The fact that you need to switch people mid-battle to accommodate for different enemy types means that you really need to use everyone equally. This is a nice change of pace from the older games, although I still like doing it the old way equally well too.

Gameplay (score 10/10): This is a bit of a catch-all category for me. Let's see...FFX is very well paced in difficulty level, the controls and camera angle are good, and there's a wealth of interesting sidequests to take part in. Overall, I'm pretty happy with it. My only small complaint would be that I wish there was a way to skip cut scenes. It's annoying to have to sit through a long cut scene again when you have to re-do a boss battle. Other than that, no complaints at all.

Overall (score 10/10): NOTE this score is not an average; it's my subjective overall score. FFX is a fine and excellent game. In my opinion, FFX is one of the best RPGs out there, and definitely should be added your collection if you're an RPG fan. And for its (currently) cheap price, you can't afford to pass this one up!

Lunar: The Silver Star review

 Lunar Silver Star Story first debuted on the Sega CD. While the Sega CD system didn't last very long, Lunar did manage to get quite a following. Unfortunately, because the Sega CD user base wasn't large, Lunar was overlooked by several gamers. The game had a release on the very short lived Sega Saturn, but again, never reached audiences. In 1999 Lunar finally reached a large audience. The Playstation. With several changes and updates from the original Sega CD version to make the story more complete and satisfying.

Lunar Silver Star Story Complete concerns itself with Alex. He one day dreams of being a Dragonmaster. Just like his hero, Dyne. He figures he'll just have to keep dreaming, though. Until his friend Ramus has a plan to go into the White Dragon cave and get a hold of the White Dragon Diamond. Finally, a chance for Alex to go on an adventure. But it ends up becoming much bigger than he ever dreamed.

For the most part, Lunar Silver Star Story has a cliched overly done storyline. Despite that, however, it is one of the best in the genre because it has a fantastic cast of characters who are all well developed, a good sense of humor, one of the best villains in video game history as well as a very emotional story. All these things make you forget the cliched storyline and make it something enjoyable and memorable. The story also has a few really great looking anime cinematics and some incredibly good voice acting to help flesh out the humor and wit. It also helps that the dialog is extremely well written. Put simply, the story is presented very well.

The gameplay is dated, but that's to be expected for a game originally released in 1992. Lunar has a straightforward combat system. It's the simple turn based fare you've seen in dozens of RPGs. You'll select an action for every character to do and then watch the battle play out as your enemies and you take turns. Every character can either attack, use special techniques unique to only them use items and run away, etc. Battles are contact based. That doesn't mean enemies will simply let you waltz by. Many enemies upon seeing you will give chase.

Lunar is by no means a complicated game. Every character gains magic through levels (save for Alex who will get a few spells from meeting certain objectives in the story) and has their own unique magic. For example, Nash is the only character who can cast Thunder Magic. There are a few tidbits to the battle system that help flesh it out and keep it from being overly repetitive. For one, characters who use staves can use them to cast spells that they otherwise might not be able to cast. There's also a huge emphasis on strategy here. Lunar is not an easy game by any stretch of the imagination. Especially up against the bosses. You'll find you have to move your characters all over the field and heal every turn to keep yourself a float. To make matters even more difficult, you only have a limited number of items you can carry and on top of that, items at the market are quite expensive and monsters don't drop a lot of money. So even though battles are contact based, it's probably best to fight as many as you can. The only major problem with Lunar's battle system is that battles aren't quick. Even normal battles can last for several minutes because of having to heal yourself constantly. For the most part, though, the trip through the game is very rewarding.

Visually, Lunar is a very colorful, artistic looking, smooth running game. It doesn't push the Playstation to its limits, but it does manage to be a good game nonetheless. The artistic design is incredibly well done, though. So are the character portraits and animated cutscenes. It's actually a very beautiful looking game, but it looks like a smooth over sixteen bit game too. Luckily, this won't bother most gamers.

It sounds pretty good. As mentioned before, the voice acting is some of the best in the industry. Many of the tunes are quite catchy (particularly the world map and battle themes). They're short tracks, though, so they loop real soon, which makes much of the music quite repetitive. In the long run, though, you're getting quite a bit.

Lunar Silver Star Story Complete originally came with a lot of extras. A soundtrack CD filled with the best tracks, a cloth map, a making of CD and a hardcover instruction booklet that even included a sample of the strategy guide made by Working Designs themselves. It's quite the collector's item to have.

Lunar Silver Star Story Complete is a fantastic RPG that despite being released on the Playstation, was still fairly overlooked. It does, however, retain a strong audience. A fine game where the effort of the creators really shows through fantastic writing, a well crafted story and some of the most well developed characters to grace the genre.

Grandia review

 Grandia is a great game all around. If not one of the best, it is definitely one of the most fun RPG's I've ever played.

The first thing which strikes my memory, like so many other games, is the characters. They are good, fun characters. If nothing else, Grandia does make you care about them and what happens to them. Unlike almost every other RPG ever made, there really aren't any dark, brooding characters, or even evil ones (even the bad guys weren't very evil seeming), and I know that will put a lot of people off. Justin, the main character, is a total jerk. He's a nice guy at heart, but just a little clueless. There is some voice acting, which is entertaining, and some of it is okay. I like it well enough to keep it. It set the characters well. There is a little love story, too, which is corny, but it fits well with the rest of the game. Nothing in this game is very serious.

Except the combat. The fighting system in Grandia is awesome. It is still turn-based, but instead of just standing in a row, you're characters actually move around, which is important against many bosses and special attacks. It uses a timing system with an action bar to determine who goes when. When you hit enemies, or are hit yourself, you move back on the bar. This is important for strategic reasons. Basically, you can do more damage with a combo than a critical attack, but a critical moves them further back on the bar. The special moves and magic system is very well done. You level up specific moves and spells by using them. This makes some of your early moves devastating even into the later parts of the game.

On a similar note, the experience system is one of the best in the industry (whether or not it is innovative or original). There are standard level ups, running on the normal experience system. Then Grandia goes the extra mile and adds in the specific weapon and magic class levels. When you use a specific type of weapon, you level up in that specific weapon, getting a small stat boost and allowing you access to new skills. This makes it necessary to switch up what kind of weapons each character uses. Magic also levels up in this same way, and to get access to new spells, especially the ones which are mixes of elements, you will have to mix-up what kinds of magic you use. It is a fun system to work with.

Grandia has a fairly simplistic, happy plot. It is not unique by any right. I guess it kind of is by its lightness. It really is cheery, and a total departure from dark, depressing insight into the human soul type stories (did someone just mention Xenogears?). You spend a large portion of your time on side-quests and adventures which have nothing to do with the overall plot, but that was okay, because you are a young, aspiring adventurer, after all. That, and the combat system is great, so fighting lots of monsters is fun. The main story is nothing special, but it is interesting. I did find myself wanting to know what happens. Despite the general and generic plot, individual events and occurrences are still exciting now and then.

The graphics aren't anything special, like most Playstation games that are three years old. The characters themselves are well observed, done with a high level of detail, and the character dialogue portraits are neat. Every character has two or three, expressing different emotions. Again, nothing outstanding or brilliant, but a nice touch. In general, the dungeons themselves and the enemy monsters don't look so great. But then again, I've never really cared much about graphics in RPGs. Your call.

There are a couple things which really makes Grandia stand out above the rest of the crowd. For one thing, there are no random encounters. Nobody likes those. There are still wandering monsters, but you can see them on screen before you have to fight them, and they are avoidable. I thought that was absolutely awesome. The music in Grandia was excellent. I think it is the absolute best soundtrack on a RPG so far. I absolutely loved it. People who weren't watching would occasionally glance in to see if I was just listening to classical music. That is a bit of an overstatement, but still.

All in all, Grandia is great. It is an epic. It only took me 40 hours to beat. Nowhere near this 90 hour stuff the other reviewers were talking about. I did almost everything too, including talking to everybody in town three times in a row (one of Grandia's more annoying points). The dungeons are well designed, if short, and easy. I had a more difficult time fighting wandering monsters than some bosses (mainly because you can hit them so many times they never get to move). Anyway, Grandia is definitely one of the most fun RPGs ever, even if it isn't one of the technical best. And it has Puffy. All RPG fans should pick it up. And beat it. It is great.

Kingdom Hearts review

 Yeah, I know "adequate" isn't exactly an attention grabber for a review but I couldn't think of another way to describe this game. However, I will elaborate.

The game's plot revolves around multiple dimension-like worlds in the Disney and Final Fantasy universe. Kind of like a Mickey Mouse version of the show "Sliders". Anyway, you have to travel to all of these worlds looking for your standard bad guys the Heartless. Your main character, Sora, holds the key to defeating the Heartless and setting things right again. I'm not kidding, he actually uses a weapon called a "keyblade". And you thought the gunblade was original. In your travels you'll go to Agrabah (home of Aladdin), Wonderland, Neverland, Olympus, Tarzan's jungle, and others. All the while encountering critters from Disney cartoons and Final Fantasy games.

Being a Final Fantasy fan, the major draw for me in this game was seeing Final Fantasy characters from Final Fantasy 7, 8, and 10. Unfortunately, this is one aspect of the game that disappoints. Cameos are limited. I haven't played through the entire game but it seems that the only characters playing significant roles are Leon (aka Squall from FF8), Cid (from FF7), and a little bit from Yuffie (FF7) and Aerith (Aeris/FF7). Sure old favorites Cloud and Sephiroth make appearances, but they don't play major roles in the game. And in the end, you could easily replace them with normal, original NPCs. Square's number one reason for including them is to pander to the Final Fantasy crowd. Mission accomplished, I bought it.

You'll mostly be encountering Disney characters. Disney NPCs, Disney party members, even Disney summon monsters. For me, all that Disney stuff would make me vomit, but it isn't as childish as you would think. Donald and Goofy provide you with battle support and they're good for a laugh in cutscenes. On the downside, all of the worlds I've seen so far are Disney worlds, nothing from Final Fantasy, or at least anything original - except for the first island you start on, and that reminds me of Besaid from FFX.

The voice acting in the game is short. Most of what you see are dialogue boxes or speech bubbles instead of actual voices. But the voices that are in the game are excellent. Square and Disney actually hired some professional talent for a few of the non-Disney characters. And even the Disney characters are voiced by either the original voice actor from their respective movies, or the actor from the TV series spinoff (in a few cases). The dialogue is a little choppy in some areas, but it's not as ridiculous as some of the translated dialogue in other games.

Play control. Jeez. Controlling your character is relatively easy. Battles are a little tougher because of the battle menu, but they do provide a few shortcut buttons for magic, etc. The absolute worst thing is the platform jumping. Between the camera angles and your nitwit sidekicks, it's difficult to land some jumps. Donald and Goofy are constantly in the way, they follow you around like the characters in Final Fantasy 8 do, unfortunately you can't walk through them. I had to push Goofy off a ledge a few times just to see where I was going. They do add a remedy for the problems - a first person "look around" view. It helps to see around and to line yourself up with a jump, but it doesn't help if you turn the camera around to look for a platform only to see that annoying duck standing in your way. And in battle they were basically useless for me. After playing Devil May Cry, I'm good enough with melee sword combat that I don't need the backup of a giant dog with a shield and a duck who can't hit a monster the size of a building with a fire spell.

The minor problems aside, the game has its strengths. The story and the cutscenes make you feel like you're actually controlling a Disney movie - not necessarily a bad thing. And the freedom of movement in battles was a nice change from turn-based Final Fantasy combat. It's no Final Fantasy X, but Kingdom Hearts ranks as one of the best RPGs I've ever played.

Pros:
-Great battle system
-Top notch voice acting
-Music is good and it sets the mood in certain areas
-Original and engaging story

Cons:
-Donald and Goofy get in the way
-Other members of your party aren't very helpful in battle
-Final Fantasy angle not as prominant as many would like

Overall I gave it four stars taking into consideration the flaws. If you're looking for an original RPG, I would recommend this game. But if you're looking for a Final Fantasy clone, this isn't it. Otherwise I think everyone should give this game a shot. Rent it first, and if you like it then buy it.

Kingdom Hearts II review

 Like most people, I was hooked on the Disney-meets-Final Fantasy game known as Kingdom Hearts, which recieved such a huge cult following. And I was feverishly waiting for the sequel to come out, which has been considered as one of the most highly-anticipated games of the PS2.

Now that it's here, and after playing through it, let me give my thoughts on the aspects of this game:

Storyline:

The game picks up where the Chain of Memories left off as a mysterious being Roxas (Jesse McCartney)unknowingly has some sort of connection to the Keyblade bearer, Sora, who has been kept in a slumber capsule along with Donald and Goofy for almost a year, now. The first 2-3 hours of the game you'll play as Roxas, leading to flashback scenes of the first game and the COM games, which is good news for the newcomers wanting to play this game. Afterwards, the game picks up to speed as you finally play as Sora, back on his feet to find Riku and King Mickey...and Kairi, as well. At the same time, however, he has to defend the worlds by Heartless and strange creatures known as Nobodies led by a strange black cloaked group called Organization XIII.

Mickey, in particular, plays a larger and more awesome role in this game, given the fact that earlier he wears the same black cloak of the Organization.

After playing the game here, I can well say that the storyline is the game's strongest point overall. It asks the lingering questions that were running through our own minds as we played the first game. And best of all, it's all made so we can never constantly expect what's going to happen next.

Graphics:

A vast improvement over the first; more solid animations, and lesser "cheating" facial animations as well. I was shocked to see the game through my own eyes at how excellent Square Enix has done. The camera's problems, in particular, have been fixed to perfection, thereby, moving the control of the camera from the L2 and R2 buttons to the R3 analog stick, giving you the chance to move it whereever you want it to.

Levels:

There are 15 levels as followed:

Twighlight Town
Hollow Bastion (returning level from the first game)
The Land of Dragons
Beast's Castle
Olympus Coliseum (returning level)
Disney Castle
Timeless River
Atlantica (returning level)
Port Royal
Agrabah (returning level)
Halloween Town (returning level)
Pride Land
100 Acre Wood (returning level)
Space Paranoids
The World That Never Was

A few of the worlds here have returned from the first game, but are entirely redone so that they won't play exactly like the first game. Atlantica was strangely turned into a mini-game world, but Olympus Coliseum and Halloween Town are a vast improvement, because they follow directly from their own movies. 100 Acre Wood's book makes a comeback as you fetch the torn pages for it once again. Hallow Bastion becomes a BraveHeart-esque level and answers most of the questions overall from the first game. In addition, Mulan (The Land of Dragons) and Beauty and the Beast (Beast's Castle) recieve their own worlds, and surprisingly, there's a Steamboat Wille-themed world, Timeless River, which adds very well to how Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and even Sora would look like in the 1930s Disney cartoons. This ties in with the Disney Castle world, which Sora will meet Queen Minnie for the first time.

The biggest dissapointment is the Lion King-themed world, Pride Land, which grows so annoying even after the first few minutes. The best level of this whole game, however, is the Tron-themed level, Space Paranoids. This ties in wholly with the movie itself, and looks downright amazing. The trio, in particular, get to wear the cool, blue-lighted suits you see those people wear in the movie itself.

Music/Voices:

The music is on par with the first game. Some music, in the returning worlds, is still the same (except Antlantica), while the rest recieves some new orchestrations which are absolutely superb. There's plenty more where that came from.

The voices hit more than miss. The roles of Haley Joel Osment, Tony Anselmo, and Bill Farmer as Sora, Donald, and Goofy have returned, as well as the rest of the cast in the returning levels. (I still couldn't believe they didn't get Robin Williams to do the voice of Genie, and have to dig up Homer Simpson.) The Pride Land level has the worst voices overall with almost no depth from the cast in the movie whatsoever; Port Royal doesn't have the same movie cast either, but the guys here sound exactly like the movie's cast. I was really shocked.

The most surprising roll, however comes from Saruman the White himself, Christopher Lee as Diz (aka Ansem the Wise--you'll find out soon enough), the main man of Hollow Bastion. When I first watched his role as Diz, I was blown away at how well he delivered his preformance; I kept asking myself, "How the f*** did they get him to do this?!"

Gameplay/Lifespan

The gameplay, too, hits more than misses. You'll have more combo attacks than the first game, and you'll be able to do "reaction commands" with the triangle button (which seems awful similar to the context-sensitive actions in Conker's Bad Fur Day). The Drive Command is a nice touch, too; You'll mostly need it when you're fighting a boss. In some areas, when Sora bites the dust in some of the bosses, you'll play as Mickey, trying to bring Sora back to life.

The biggest flaw, however, comes from the difficulty presented in this game. What made the first game so difficult was the camera's issues which make it so hard to see where the heck you're going. Now that they're fixed, you can hack and slash anywhere you want to, which makes it a lesser challenge than before.

Luckily, thanks to the addition of an Expert mode, as well as making yourself having to come back to the worlds you've already open paths to for "second quests", this game is almost as long as the first; The first took 30 hours for me to beat and this game took me almost 29 hours. It's safe for me to say, "Close enough."

Overall:

Despite the difficulty flaws, you'll definitely have a fun time with this game. I certainly enjoyed it and I'd say KHII is definitely better than the first, despite a few of the lackluster reviews on some online sites.