My Holidays (Lots of gaming)

--If you're one of my lovely readers (All three of you), DON'T read this blog. This is purely for my own benefit--

Dear Scott. I've finished 6 games so far this year. They are Eternal Sonata (Xbox 360), Star Ocean: The Second Story (PlayStation), Final Fantasy VI (PlayStation (Port)), Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (PlayStation Portable), Dark Cloud (PlayStation 2) and Final Fantasy VII (PlayStation). I'm going to tell you all about the game and how I felt about it.

Eternal Sonata
Yes, technically I did finish this game this year. During the first few minutes of the new year, that is. Eternal Sonata was a very nice game. It had: beautiful music, cute graphics, loveable characters, an interesting plot and a fun battle system. The game was based around Frederic Francais Chopin (or something like that anyway) who was a French pianist, Polka and Allegretto. Allegretto was the "figure-head" lead character, but that was likely just because he was a young boy wielding a sword which is pretty much standard. He was alright, but nothing special. Polka was a darling. She was fatally ill and her motive in the game was to spend the rest of her life helping others. She usesd a parasol in battle, as well as one of the two characters that can use magic (apparently all that other stuff that the characters do isn't magic. I'm pretty sure it was, though). She was a bit cliche, but she was just so damn cute that it didn't matter. Allegretto and Polka fell in love. And, well, it was done pretty poorly. It started off quite well, with Allegretto having a bit of a crush on the girl but then all of a sudden the two were inlove and it didn't feel quite right. The other characters were; Beat, Jazz, Viola, Falsetto, Claves, Salsa and March. Beat was a whiny little brat who pissed EVERYONE off. Jazz was awesome. He was the leader of a resistance army who had a giant sword. He was the old (27 is old for a JRPG, okay), quiet, strong type but he pulled off way better than others because of his extra coolness. Viola was a pair of breasts that was pretty good in battle with her bow and arrow but for the most part seemed pretty irrelevant. And was she inlove with Jazz? Falsetto was a dyke. Seriously, I spent the first part of the game wondering whether she was an effeminate man or a masculine woman. This made me hate her initially, but as the game went on I started to like her more. She owned battles with her unnarmed combat style. And was she inlove with Jazz? Claves was a pink-haired gal. I spent awhile deciding whether her naivity was cute or irritating. About the time I decided it was irritating, she became totally badass and I loved her. Then she died. She WAS inlove with Jazz. Seems like everyone had the hots for Jazzy-boy. Can't blame them. He was awesome. Salsa and March were twins. Salsa joined the party relatively early and was a nice addition both in battle and for the storyline. March joined much later and was probably the most irrelevant character ever. She pretty much just turned up with Salsa one time and goes "Hai guyz, how 'bout I tag along?". The game had a lot of trouble delivering its storyline. Which is a shame, because it was an interesting story. It just sort of decided to tell you random things at random times and give you all these questions and not answer any of them. But then, at the end, most of the questions were answered, but some plot holes remained. It did have a nice ending - very emotive. Although there was a random "SAVE THE WORLD NAO!" speech that sort of come out of nowhere and kind of ruined the mood. Another big mood-killer was the stupid history lessons that randomly came out of no where. I would've been all g with these if they weren't in the middle of all the good stuff. And you couldn't just skip them and watch them later (even if you did skip them, it skips all of the other scenes that come before and afterwards) you had to sit there and read about Chopin's life for awhile and then go back to the game. Seriously, WTF was that all about? The gameplay was not a WTF moment, however. The battles were brilliant. I had so much fun during them that I was never annoyed at getting them. The combat combined turn-based and real-time together to make really innovative battles. I don't even know what innovative means but it feels right. So on the whole, this was a really lovely game it just got hurt with some seriously shit story delivery.
[7/10]

Star Ocean: The Second Story
I've played this game a lot. I finished it twice (as Claude and as Rena) a few years back. And then last year I played through again as Claude, hoping to get enough voices to unlock the special stuffz. I didn't, so I played through as Rena to get some more. This game used to be a favourite of mine, but playing it through again with 15-16 years of wisdom, well... It didn't quite live up to how I thought it was. This game certainly had potential, it just fell through. Let's start at the start (duh). When you begin, you get the option of choosing whether to follow the game as Claude, or as Rena. Sounds nice, right? Well the two paths are pretty much exactly the same except for the very beginning and a few minor story events later. On top of that, both of the characters are so painfully annoying that it's more of a "Oh noes... Which one is less shit?" rather than a "Oh noes... They're both so awesome!". The answer to, "Which one is less shit?" is Claude. But that by no means, makes him good. Unfortunately it's hard to make up for these bad lead characters with the supporting characters because none of them are compulsory. That's right, Claude and Rena are the only characters that you MUST get it, and therefore are the only characters that are integral to the main plot. There are 10 optional characters to get, however you can only recruit 6 people in each game (plus Claude and Rena) and while some of the optional characters are interesting (Celine, Leon, Opera, Bowman, Ashton) and some are not (Dias, Precis, Noel, Chisato, Ernest) none of them get enough screen time to actually develop much, if at all. The story itself, is pretty bad. It goes like this --> Claude is investigating space and he is accidentally transported to Expel where he meets Rena. Expel is in danger due to the mysterious Sorcery Globe. Claude agrees to investigate with Rena. Rena has a pretty pendant that was given to her by her biological mother who she wants to meet (OMG, original!). Turns out Rena isn't Expelian either, but instead she was transported there from Nede, 100,000,000 (ish) years ago. If you do the math, that means Rena's biological mother is dead. Poor lass (not). Expel is destroyed and you go to Nede. Nede is in danger due to the myserious Ten Wise Men. Claude agrees to investigate with Rena. Claude's dad is killed and Claude is sad for about 2 seconds but then decides that character development is for noobz and gets over it. Claude and Rena get super strong and have super hot sex on a beach and beat up the Ten Wise Men. Then the creators got all lame and brought Expel back for no real reason. Then we get treated to a bunch of "endings" depending on the characters you recruited and their affection towards each other (I remember in my Rena game a few years ago, I got her to turn lesbian for the babilicous three-eyed, gun-wielding Opera. This time she just made babies with Claude) and then it ends. With no real conclusion and the only satisfaction you get is from pairing up all the hot guys with all the hot girls and laughing at all the people who ended up alone (Noel NEVER gets a partner. Instead he screws little animals). The battle system should've been awesome too. It was random encounters, yet the battles were free-roam. However all fun of chasing and slashing the enemy was removed as if you press the X button, Claude (or whoever you're controlling) will automatically run over to an enemy and hit them. So, really, it wasn't free-roam. Also WTF was up with the magic-based characters? Celine and Leon were two of the five mildly interesting characters in the game. They had these super intense spell animations, unfortunately they stopped the action, took about 5 minutes each, and did damage which Claude and the other fighters can do in about 3 seconds. Star Ocean: The Secondary Story is a game that should've been good but just failed. Oh well, Star Ocean: The Last Hope will be out in New Zealand soon. I can see if that is any better. Although it will probably be outshadowed by the next installment in the much better series, Tales of Vesperia.
[3/10]

Final Fantasy VI
This game is a favourite of mine. Awesome plot, great characters with excellent development, amazing music, good battles. The storyline is about the Returners who are a resistance group that are trying to stop the Empire from using the power of Espers to take over/destroy the world. Sounds pretty typical, right? Well about half way through the game, BANG, the world actually IS destroyed, and you lose all but one of your characters. So instead of trying to stop the world from ending, in the second part of the game is about getting all your characters back and beating Kefka (crazy clown dude who destroyed the world) so that you restore the world. FFVI features an ensemble cast with no absolute lead character which is strange for a Final Fantasy. However, if you had to pick one, Terra is the leading lady. Yes, that's right, a FEMALE main character. During the very first stage of the game, Terra is a slave for the Empire, she breaks out of their control however and joins the returners. She is a product of a human and an Esper meaning she has natural magical powers. Terra is pretty lame at the start, she whines a lot and isn't as decisive as a leader should be. However she quickly grows out of this and starts to fill her role much better. In the second part of the game, if you get her, she learns what love is, and becomes badass. Hot. The other main character is also a lady (What the Hell was going on with Square???); Celes. Despite Terra being pretty cool, she is totally outshadowed by Celes who is just pure awesome. She too, was with the Empire but she betrayed them and joined up with the returners. She was infused with magical goodness when she was young so she has magical powers too. This babe never left my team, because not only is she awesome, she kicks ass in battle. Celes is the first character you get in the second part of the game, and is the one who gets everything back together, she also opposes Kefka more so than Terra. All of this makes some people think that Celes is the real lead character but meh. Celes falls inlove with Locke, so you better fucking recruit him in the second half of the game or Celes is left all lonely and sad. Locke is a thief (or treasure hunter) he is part lead character, part love interest, part awesome. He actually fits the role of typical FF lead quite well, maybe even better than the ladies. But he's not. He's really just there as a BFFL for Terra and super smexy sex appeal for Celes. This is another guy who never left my party, mostly because he's awesome but also because he can be made pretty good battle. But then, pretty much everyone in the game can be be made pretty good in battle. This game is a game that manages to make almost all of their characters loveable, and gives them large amounts of character development. The other characters in this game are Edgar, Setzer, Sabin, Cyan, Gau, Relm, Strago, Shadow, Mog, Gogo and Umaro. Although most of the focus is on Terra, Celes and Locke, they all get a turn to shine (with the exception of those last three). I don't dislike any of the characters but my favourites amongst the cast would be the Terra, Celes, Locke, the Figaro brothers (Edgar and Sabin) and Setzer. The esper system, while not as good as FFVII's materia system, FFVIII's junction system or FFX's sphere grid system. It probably would have been better if 50% of the spells weren't totally irrelevant. The battles were fun but because all the characters were sooooo good it made every boss incredibly easy. Especially later when you just get 4 people to sit in the back row and throw lots of Ultimas at the enemy (Terra/Celes + Gem Box + Quick + Ultima = Win). This is a fantastic game and definately one of the best in the Final Fantasy series.
[8/10]

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
I was pretty uncertain about this game. I really only played it because of the FFVII fanboy in me (which isn't that big, but it was enough). I wasn't expecting much considering it was a prequel to a pretty WTF game that was based around a character that was in the original for all of 12 seconds (for real). I was pleasantly surprised. When I first started the game, I was enjoying it. The graphics are like fucking PS2 graphics on the PSP so... Wow. A lot of FFVII's music returned but was like 1000 times better. Zack was likeable and surprisingly different from Cloud. The battles were not turn-based, and took advantage of the old materia system and including something new called the DMW. This made the battles, overall, pretty good (barring that stupid voice that goes "initiating combat mode", "conflict resolved" and "modulating phase") While the secondary main characters were pretty meh (Angeal was pretty cool but sort of dull. Genesis was like almost as womany as Kuja from FFIX and I've never been a Sephiroth fan) it was the tertiary main characters that were really great. Cloud and Aerith returned (except not considering this was set beforehand) from FFVII and were great. They were both loveable and the way the Cloud/Zack and Aerith/Zack relationships were done was top-notch. Cissnei was the other main character and she was just like walking hawtness and was fucking cool. Although she was shit-useless at fighting. Her relationship with Zack was also very well done. So about half-way through the game when there was less focus on all Angeal, Sephiroth and Genesis and more focus on the younger, hotter fellows, the game really picked up. It got really intense and the last few chapters (although really random) were so hard to stop playing. When the game really decided to be amazing was the very end. After defeating Genisis; Zack and Cloud are confronted by SOLDIER infantrymen. Cloud being infected with Mako poisoning, Zack fights them alone. You are forced into a battle (in which you cannot die, I believe), some super hot shit music plays and you kick the crap out of a bunch of infantrymen (spamming quake FTW). Then you get your "modulating phase" thingie and you get flashes of Sephiroth, Tseng and Cissnei and then they disappear off of your DMW. You fight some more until you get another "modulating phase" thingie, where you get flashes of Angeal and Cloud and then they disappear off of your DMW. This is when you start getting really sad. Because you KNOW that Zack is going to die, but you refuse to let it happen. There's no way you're going to be responsible for this (fictional) guy you've grown to love's death. You're getting the shit kicked out of you and then the "modulating phase" thingie goes again. Aerith is all awesome and you're praying to God that Healing Wave is activated and Zack is saved. Nope, Aerith disappears off of the DMW. As Zack dies, he has a little talk with Cloud but nobody remembers what he is saying because they're so upset. Some happy music plays while Cloud remembers Zack and then Aerith shows us her tits. Beautiful. Amazing ending. Wait, what? It's not over? Zack wakes up and goes "Those Wings. I want them too" and flies off into Heaven with Angeal. Umm... What? Seriously, that ruined the perfection of the ending. After the creddies we see a redone version of FFVII's opening scene. We see Cloud and are unsure if we are happy or not as we go "OMG" as we realize there is going to be a crappy sequel. Then you realize that actually, there already IS a crappy sequel. That's right, instead of being a crappy prequel, Crisis Core was so moving and awesome that it made the real game, FFVII look like a crappy sequel. Wow.
[7/10]

Dark Cloud
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! I finished this game. FINALLY. This was the first game I got for the PS2 (about 7 years ago) and I have never completed it until now. I started a new game of this about a year ago after playing My Life as a King (Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles) and slowly made my way till the end. Why did it take me so long? Because it had lots of awesome sidequests and other good shit to do? No. Because it was really tedious and boring? YES! I don't even know where to start. Okay, I'll start where any good RPG should: with the plot. Wait, there was a plot to this game? Yes, there was. Remember when they randomly gave you some boring-ass stories about some magical genies and slutty princes and princesses? THAT was the story. The story in this game was a total joke. It was hardly there for the most part and when it was it was laughable and unengaging (with the exception of the La Saia story-arc which was pretty good). Main character? Toan, a young boy with a hat, a poncho and an annoying girly voice. Fortunately you hardly ever had to hear it because he was a silent protaganist and there was no voice acting except for the sound the characters make when they attack. Despite being the first character you get, Toan will probably be used only to collect the atlamillia for the most part. Why? Because Toan is a melee character. And in Dark Cloud, melee characters suck. Ranged character are better in nearly every way (infact, one of them IS better than them in every way). So when do we get a ranged character? Pretty soon into the first dungeon (which is the most annoying and tedious thing EVER until you rebuild the shop) you get Xiao. Xiao is your pet cat. You use a magical potion on her and turn her into a... Cat-GIRL! Yay! Xiao uses a slingshot which means she can stand back and hit monsters and shouldn't take any damage at all. PLUS she loses her weapon HP (more on that later) much slower than Toan. Of course, her initial weapon sucks so you're best running around as Toan until you get another one for her in which you should ditch Toan forevs. Oh yeah, Xiao will never ever say anything or do absoltely anything that will affect the plot. Ever. Awesome... After rebuilding Norune village (which I admit, is a hoot) you go to another empty village with another dungeon and you get to do the exact same thing all over again. That's alright, with the exception of the initial awful tediousnessm it was pretty damn fun. You meet Goro who is a short chubby kid who likes to wack monsters very, very, VERY slowly with axes and hammers (and sometimes fish or turtles). Goro is absolutely useless. Buy lots of bombs and use them for Goro's limited zone. Then switch to Xiao and hope you find a good weapon for him before you have to use him again. It's probably about now that you'll begin to get annoyed at having to switch between your characters all the time (Toan 3-8 times every level to get atlamillia, Xiao ocassionally to jump over things and Goro ocassionally to press buttons) which is VERY annoying and it gets MUCH worse. Anyway, moving on, after completeing Matataki Village and Wise Owl Forest you'll get a pathetic attempt at some story stuff and then be sent to a new place to rebuild, Queens. Although you've already done it twice already, rebuilding Queens is super fun. However it is the last time it will be fun, as after the third time of doing something, people get bored. In Queens you meet your next ally, Ruby. Go get her 2 platinum rings, switch to her and NEVER EVER EVER use anybody else (unless you have to). Ruby is hands down the best character in the game. She is ranged, like Xiao, however she can also charge her attacks like Toan and Goro. This makes her absolutely amazing at both offence and defence. Plus, she's hawt (although it is a bit weird how her boobs jiggle ALL the time). Now for the rest of the game rush through the dungeons, blasting things with Ruby and ignoring your new characters (Ugaga and Osmond). The rest of the game is very boring and very tedious. Why? Well there's even MORE character swapping and lots of other small things that make you want to kill yourself. The game had an attempt as being realistic by making your weapons get damaged and broken and having your characters get thirsty. This, however, is just a pain. Your weapon lose HP quickly, sometimes up to 5 points every hit (with melee characters. Ranged characters will never lose more than one point every hit, with the exception of Ruby's charged attack). If you are so caught up in a combo that you don't have time to repair your weapon, it breaks and you lose it forever. This is VERY annoying (and one of the main reasons ranged characters are much more efficient) as you could lose a weapon you spent hours training and never get it back. The thirst meter, while not as annoying as the WHP thing, is still stupid. Your characters get thirsty as you run around and you have to give them water or they will lose HP. This is annoying (especially at the beginning when you have a small thirst meter) as you have to carry around lots of water with you. Basically this game could've been really good but ruinied itself with lots of unnecessary things. Most of the 30 hours I spent playing this game was just doing irritating tedious things for the 438457210384th time. Here, I'll give you a breakdown of everything you do in the game.
-60% Running (Just running, nothing else)
-10% Fighting
-10% Switching characters
-5% Georama
-5% Plot
Sound fun? You can try it yourself. Or you could just believe me and pass on this game. I'm playing the sequel, Dark Chronicle right now. I'm only 1 dungeon in and its already MUCH better.
[4/10]

Final Fantasy VII
Okay, so I haven't actually completed this playthrough of the game, but I've finished it before, so here I go. FFVII is probably the most popular JRPG ever, and possibly the most popular game ever. TBH, I'm not really sure why. Everybody wets themselves over the characters, the storyline, the music, the graphics (WTF???) and the materia system. But really, none of them were that good and the Final Fantasy series has done a lot better (VI, X). Let's start with the story. At the beginning, Cloud is a mercenary who is working with AVALANCHE (which includes Barret and Breasts) who are trying to save the world. Okay, you we can get on board with this, right? A little while in some more stuff is revealed about the Ancients and the Promised Land and about Cloud's dark past (everyone needs to have one of those). This gives us a second motive for the storyline which is good. You continue on, levelling up, gaining lots of (useless) materia, recruiting some (useless) characters and shit. Then everything is getting all hot and climactic at the end of Disk 1 and BAM! Aerith is killed by Sephiroth. Her theme song plays during the Jenova Life battle, which makes you want to cry but the robotic dialogue (no voice acting back in these days so it was just text boxes) and the ugly-ass graphics prevent you from doing so. Then, on Disk 2, the story takes a turn for the worse. Much worse. It is revealed that everything that you've been told so far is all lies and all of the awesome plot, motive and character development that ocurred didn't actually happen and actually happened with some other fellow named Zack. Um... Okay... What? Also, Tifa knew all along but though it would be lulz if she didn't tell anybody. The storyline never gets as horribly as awful as that again, but it never really picks up. Cloud was a pretty shitty lead character. No, not because he was all emo-like (because, despite what everyone seems to think, he wasn't), but because he was all cocky and arrogant at the beginning, then he was all mentally unstable and weird and then he was all comatose and then he was all lame and boring. Seriously, WTF was his character doing? Sephiroth wasn't absolutely terrible, but he certainly wasn't good. He was Cloud's BFF and then went all crazy and evil for no real reason and killed people and walked like a loser and wanted to hang out with his mum. Um... Okay. There is a lot of debate over who is a better character, Tifa or Aerith. Answer = Aerith. Tifa and Aerith are VERY similar, Tifz is just sort of a watered down version of Aerith. Aerith has everything Tifa does, but better (except for Tifa's massive boobies, of course). Barret was an angry, aggressive man who was secretly sensitive and kind. He had a gun for a hand. Meh, he never really interested me. Red XIII was a pretty cool character but he got no way near enough screen time to make him awesome. Yuffie and Cait Sith were like the worst characters ever. Hated them both. Vincent was lame and boring. Seriously, depressed mysterious weirdoes are NOT interesting. Have some real, deep characters, PLEASE. Cid was also a pretty 2-dimensional, shallow piece of shit. At least he said "shit" lots which is always entertaining. Okay, I'm trolling this game a LOT, which is unfair. It wasn't terrible, it was actually quite good. I just hate all the undeserved love it gets. The materia system was great, and the music was fantastic, the characters had their moments and Disk 1 (which is about half of the game) was really enjoyable. The materia system was a great way to customize your characters. However there were certainly some faults with it. First of all, it should have mattered if somebody had high magic power and somebody else did not. Seriously, Aerith (with the highest magic power in the game) should deal MUCH MORE damage than Barret (with the lowest magic power in the game) instead of doing like 5 (with Fire, Ice, Bolt) to 200 (with Fire 3, Ice 3, Bolt 3) more damage. Also, the stupid stats alterations (is that the right word?) were often annoying, and hardly ever beneficial. The materia system definately had a learning curve to it. I remember the first time I played my strategy was pretty much EQUIP LOTS OF AWESOME MAGIX AND GO CRAZY. However, in this latest playthrough I realize that there's not point in having all 3 characters with Fire, Ice, Lightning AND Earth magic and you can make the game much easier by just equipping lots of good defensive materia, a small amount of offensive materia and using mostly physical attacks (preferably with long-ranged characters, however the 3 of them (Barret, Vincent, Yuffie) are the less interesting characters so use cool people like Tifa and Red XIII instead). Final Fantasy VII is certainly not a bad game, it is just not an amazing game and does not deserve nearly as much love as it gets.
[6/10]

Like A Game Of Pick-Up Sticks, Played By Fucking Lunatics

There are two things to do in life;

-Roll the dice
-And hope

Life's a gamble. That's pretty much it. You make a choice and it can give you one billion dollars or bring you to true love or... Or you can cross the road and get hit by a truck. Sometimes things just happen. You can't do everything, you can't please everyone, you can't be all you want to be. You have to make hard decisons, make sacrifices and do things you may not want to. But it's all part of the game because, if you don't roll you'll never make that step forward and nothing will ever change. You don't know what will happen or how things will turn out but you've gotta make that call. And maybe, just maybe if you have enough hope, things will be okay.