Oh, look. More about Final Fantasy 13. This'll focus more on the game itself, instead of the recycled characters and tragedy-infested plot!

I was only able to play this game for 3 1/2 hours because it was really frustrating and boring. Every other FF game I've played I've either beaten, or logged at least 15 hours before things got unbearable. FF8, 10, and 10-2 were more fun than 13, and those games were pretty damned bad. So, why is FF13 a failure? Let's have a look.

Graphics
This is one good thing going for the game (Square-Enix never really disappoints in this area). The graphics are amazing. The characters, scenery, FMVs, and attack animations look great. And if you don't want to watch cutscenes or certain animations, you can skip them.


Sound
I can remember at least one song from the FF games I've played. And I usually get a song stuck in my head after an hour or so of play. This didn't happen with FF13. The music wasn't that memorable. Then there's the voice acting. In other FF games it's been fairly good, and characters who had accents didn't lose them at random times. I don't know what happened with FF13. Some of the characters sound decent, but others sound bad. Vanille, one of the main characters, was surprisingly bad; sometimes she had an accent, sometimes she didn't.


Gameplay
This is where FF13 really fails. For the first few hours, this is what you do: run forward from point A; fight a battle or two; watch a cutscene; maybe fight another battle and watch another cutscene; reach point B; repeat. Those who've made it to the end of the game said this pattern continued until near the end of the game. So, basically, you get to play an interactive movie/tutorial, not a game. There are no big areas to explore, no secret items to find, no towns to walk through. There are no diversions whatsoever until much later. There were 7 tutorials to mix things up a bit, one of them teaching you about camera control. This tutorial is completely useless; you'll be fighting with the camera (and your character) most of the time. The tutorials can be skipped, but it's not a good idea to do so on your first playthrough. You'd think battles would make things interesting, but they get boring really quick. You'll be fighting soldiers, distorted humans, and robot animals for quite a while.

Battle System
Enemies appear on the field, much like they did in FF12. However, it's almost impossible to avoid some encounters, and you can't run away from a battle once it starts. Battles don't take place on the field, either; you enter battle mode, like earlier FF games. But you can't run away if things get bad. During the first few hours of FF13, battles are pointless and you can't run away from them. Enemies don't drop money or EXP, and only occasionally drop items. Later on, they'll start dropping Crystarium Points (equivalent of EXP) and TP (used for summoning). Did I mention you can't run away from a battle once it starts? I was under the impression this important option was around since FF1, and only left temporarily when FF Tactics came around. Let's go on to the new way of taking turns.

The ATB system is back, but each character's bar gets divided into sections depending on what actions are selected. A regular attack will take up one section, while a special ability might take up the entire bar. When the bar fills up, all the actions you picked will be executed. If you don't want to wait for the bar to fill completely, you can push triangle to execute one or more actions when they're available. At first, there are 3 ways to select actions: Auto-Battle, Abilities, and Items. Items should be self-explanitory. Auto-Battle simply chooses your actions for you. For the first part of the game, you'll only have about 1 or 2 abilities, so you're better off selecting Auto-Battle. Repeatedly. You can select actions on your own from the Abilities menu, but this can cost you time and HP. Time is important for your rating, which I'll talk about in a bit.

During battle, you get to control only one character: your party leader. You MUST keep this character alive. If the leader dies, it's game over. The way the battle system is set up, though, you'll be somewhat thankful you only control one character. Then you learn your other party members are controlled by some incredibly shitty AI. If you need healing, you'll probably have to do it yourself. Your party members can't seem to use items, and when they have access to healing magic, they'll sometimes ignore your near-death party leader. You do get fully healed at the end of battles, but that doesn't help when you can't keep yourself alive. If you do get to the game over screen, at least you can select retry and start near the failed battle.

Once you do finish a battle, you get a rating, from 1 to 5 stars. The rating system is balls, and I have no idea how ratings are calculated. The game seems to insist that the faster you finish battles, the better. This doesn't always apply, though. I finished a few battles well before the target time, and only came out with 3 stars. You'd think the rating would be important, but I didn't get much use out of it. As far as I can tell, all the rating does is up your chances of getting items at the end of a battle, but not by a whole lot. I finished some battles with 5 stars and didn't get any items from them.

Paradigms & Character Levelling
After a while, your characters will eventually gain access to the Paradigm System, a fancy name for Job System. Paradigms consist of 3 roles. You get several roles to choose from, including Medic (White Mage), Ravager (Black Mage), Commando (Fighter) and Sentinel (Meat Shield). You set up Paradigms outside of battle. For example, you could set up a Commando, Medic, Sentinel Paradigm, or a Ravager, Medic, Sentinel Paradigm. When you enter battle, your main Paradigm will be in place. If the enemies are tough, you can push L1 to select a different Paradigm and maybe make things easier. Like previous Job Systems, each character levels up each role separately. However, you level up in the stupidest way possible: the Crystarium, a recycled Sphere Grid.

If you hated the Sphere Grid of FF10, then you probably won't enjoy the Crystarium. To level up your characters and roles, you need CP, which is earned from battles. The Crystarium contains several nodes, such as STR +2 and HP +20. You spend CP travelling along the path, and at nodes as well. To go down a path, you hold X until you reach where you want to go, or you run out of CP. I think. I really didn't get the hang of it, because it was that fucked up. You have to do the Crystarium thing with 6 characters, and each one has 7 roles. To top things off, the Crystarium's made with a mess of flashy "eye-candy," which can make it confusing to see what you're doing.

Extras
There are supposedly some really cool things you can do in FF13. You'll apparently be riding chocobos, changing your party members, doing some quests, and upgrading weapons a lot come chapter 11. There are 13 chapters in the game. That's right. You don't get to really play around with any of the interesting things until near the end of the game. This was apparently done to keep the story moving. Why Square-Enix pushed gameplay aside to do this, I don't know.


Story & Characters
Another area where the game fails miserably. Recycled characters, reused moments from past FF games, and a confusing story. You can't really get interested in a story and its characters unless you know something about them. FF13 tries too hard to make things mysterious at the start, which ends up making things boring and confusing. Read FF13 in a Nutshell for a "review" of the start of the story and the characters.



Final Fantasy 13 could've been a decent game. It would've made an interesting platformer or action game; however, if this was the case, Square-Enix wouldn't have been able to call it Final Fantasy 13. Instead, the game plays like an interactive movie and is way too restrictive. It feels as if the game thinks you can't play properly, then proceeds to strap you into a stroller and push you along. At random times, it dumps you out of the stroller and punches you in the face. FF13 is another great example of why fancy graphics are not as important as good gameplay and story.

I'm playing FF12 again. It's a huge step up from FF13, despite being on inferior hardware. I'm still not too big on the gambit system; however, it sure beats having dumbfuck AI controlling your party and having to rush battles to get good items. Being able to customize my characters and choose my party early on is nice, too.

 

 

holy cow we have a...
TEAM FORTRESS 2 SERVER
let's play tf2!

Did you know we have our own Team Fortress 2 server? We do, and its better than any other one you can probably name. While mostly inactive during the day we can sometimes be found kicking each others asses on it late in to the night whenever the hell we feel like it, and you are cordially invited to come get your ass kicked, too!

CONNECTION INSTRUCTIONS:
look for "RAD! | LardPirates.com School of Hard Rawks"
OR
type "connect lardpirates.com" in to the console for faster and more convenient access to your broken skull.

WHAT TO EXPECT:
- Jukebox Mod. This is the pride of our server. if you dis the tunes be prepared to become a stooge. Nobody's going to take you seriously if you walk in and claim we're listening to country music when we've got Boston rolling.
- Alltalk. We're all friends here and theres nothing worse than being cut off from your buddies and being forced to shoot them, and then not being able to trash talk about how awesome you looked as you did it.
- Spontaneous Melee Brawls. If someone's coming at you swinging a machete and you have a gun in your hands, drop the damn thing and swing at the guy with your bare damn hands. It's how men do it.
- Tomfoolery. We fuck around. And we will fuck with you. Especially if you are a dipshit. We do it 'cuz it's fun. It's fun to do bad things.

 

 

League of Legends is a real-time strategy/RPG/battle arena game. You pick a character (aka champion), then help your teammates fight against the enemy team. The objective is to destroy the enemy's nexus in their base, and also defend your own. The nexus constantly spawns minions, little demon dudes that help rip up enemy defenses and act as meatshields.

Pros
- Free to play.
- Over 40 champions to choose from, so you'll more than likely find one that suits your playstyle. More are being added.
- A different selection of characters is available every week, so you can try some out for free before buying them.
- The game store doesn't require real money for everything. Points earned through play can be used to buy most items.
- Buying Riot Points with real money doesn't cost too much. The rates are actually pretty reasonable (less than $1/100 points), and larger amounts include bonus points.
- Practice games can be played with bots or other people.
- Ignore function is available. And it works.
- Surrender option is helpful for when you're obviously getting steam rolled, and don't want to continue the game for another 30+ minutes.
- Every game is different, even with only one map available for actual games.

Cons
- Of the 40+ characters available, at least 10 are horribly broken or annoyingly overpowered (you'll learn to hate Ryze and Poppy).
- The player base is full of elitist retards and trolls. Some skilled players bitch you out for dying once, or total morons bitch at you when they've done something stupid. You'll run into them every 3rd or 4th game, or virtually every game if you're unlucky.
- The matchmaking system isn't fair to pre-made teams with players below Lv. 20. Join a team with your low level friends, and you'll more than likely be facing opponents at Lv. 25 - 30.
- Levels, wins, and losses don't reflect skill. People can buy EXP boosts to reach max level faster. Losses can be caused by one person going afk or outright quitting. You can win even if you die 10 times.
- Surrender votes can't be initiated until at least 25 minutes have passed. If the enemies have ripped up your defenses in 10 minutes, and you know you're going to lose, you have to wait another 15 before you can try to give up. At least 60% of the team must agree to surrender, as well.
- The game's tutorial lacks important info (though, you can pick it up fairly easily by reading guides or asking friends for help).


Despite some of the faults, League of Legends is a pretty good game. It's still being updated frequently, and it's also free to play. It's also much easier to learn than some of the other games like it.

 

 

I can probably think of a lot more than this, but just so that we're not here all day, I've trimmed it down to just ten of my personal picks with an honorable mention for good measure. Let's dig it.

Honorable Mention: Knuckles Chaotix - While certainly not the best Sonic title, it is among the most obscure, having been released on the short-lived 32X platform and never seeing release on any sort of compilation since; in fact, the only recent attention it's received is being playable on the online Gametap service. Still, I think it's an interesting footnote in Sega's history, and it's actually a pretty fun game once you get used to its quirks. Come on Sega, throw it on Virtual Console for like $10, I'll buy it!
Average resale price: $30-$75, depending upon completeness.

10. Wasteland - I still have a hard time believing that this game is a mere one year younger than I am, as it has some incredible depth and gameplay innovations that set it far ahead of its time, and amazingly are STILL rarely seen in today's RPGs. But, as has been the fate of far too many good games and companies to count, it's all over once EA gets their hands on you. You get stripped down, sold out and left to rot in their sub-basement vault of doom forever. Because after all, if you don't want to invest the time to strap down and make a decent, original game, the next best thing is systematically eliminating the competition by buying them out, firing everyone and then refusing to sell or license their IPs at any price so people have no choice but to buy your garbage, right?
Average resale price: Being really old and pretty damn obscure, the pricing is a total crapshoot.

9. Wild Guns - This may surprise a good chunk of you, but once upon a time, Natsume made more than just Harvest Moon sequels and spinoffs; in fact, they made quite a few solid action games - Shatterhand, Pocky and Rocky and Shadow of the Ninja, to name a few of them. But my favorite by far is this, a frantic third-person shoot-em-up action title for the SNES. The game is set in the old west, where you blow up hordes of outlaws who inexplicably have access to giant robots and other mechanical weaponry to attack you with. It's absolute craziness, yes, but it's great fun; hell, it bears more than a passing resemblance to one of my all-time favorites, Sin and Punishment, so it's high time it got some wider recognition.
Average resale price: Around $60 for a loose cart.

8. EVO: The Search for Eden - Another super-rare title for the SNES. It's a great concept, though - starting out as a lowly fish, then slowly evolving into new forms first to defeat enemies and then later to advance through Earth's life cycle into various forms (even potentially becoming human by the end) in order to assure the survival of your planet. It's basically an RPG version of Spore without the dumbed-down gameplay and crippling spyware EA crams into everything to invade their customers' privacy and generally treat them like shit. Unfortunately, the company behind the game, an obscure little house named Givro, is now bankrupt, but surely someone can pick up the rights to it and let a new generation of gamers experience its greatness?
Average resale price: $60-$100 for a loose cart.

7. Simpsons, Alien VS Predator, and X-Men arcade games - Yes, they're licensed properties. But hey, that didn't stop TMNT from getting an XBox live port, now did it? Come on, guys, set the legal bullshit aside and give us some more great games that to date have still never been released outside of the arcades!
Average resale price: $500 or more. They're not very rare, but keep in mind that these are big, bulky arcade cabinets we're talking about.

6. Bubble Bobble Part II - No, not Bubble Symphonies. No, not that piece of crap Rainbow Islands. I speak of Bubble Bobble Part II, a great NES title that came out well after the system had given way for the Super Nintendo, and as a result was relegated to rental-only status in scattered Blockbuster stores, something which has made it an extremely rare find today. A pity, as it's one of the best-looking, sounding and playing platformers on the whole damn system. Taking Bubble Bobble (a classic in any old-school gamer's book) and vastly improving it with minigames, more boss fights and three new types of power bubbles, as well as a much-needed powerup that allows players to take extra hits before dying, it's really a pity that Taito has totally shunned this game since. And now that Square owns Taito, the chances of ever seeing it rereleased again have fallen to approximately zilch.

Panic Restaurant and Little Samson also deserve a mention for being in similar straits: late release, little promotion, unnoticed then and horribly overpriced now.
Average resale price: $120+ for a loose cart.

5. Terranigma - Hell, I could go a step further and put Quintet's entire legendary trilogy (Soulblazer, Illusion of Gaia, Terranigma) on here, but I'll just settle for the least-known of the three. With a blend of amazing visuals, stellar music, a dark plotline and much-refined and improved overhead action gameplay, it's a real mystery as to why it was never released in North America and we're all being forced to pay out the nose for an English European version. It's not especially likely to happen now that Quintet is apparently trapped in some sort of mysterious limbo, unable to report on their current whereabouts or whether they're even still around in any official capacity, but maybe someone could work out a deal to get this released on the Virtual Console?
Average resale price: $35 for a Japanese version, $195 for the Euro version, and an utterly hilarious $1200 sealed copy of the Euro version sighted on Amazon.

4. Snatcher - Wha? A Kojima gem that I didn't know about? What do you mean it's only gotten an American release on Sega CD, was one of the last games for the thing, and I have to pay out the ass for a copy? I mean, it's a great game and all, combining elements of adventure, action and shooter (one of the few games that actually uses the Genesis' light gun) all into one gigantic game, but surely it deserves to be on a better system and at a lower price, right?
Average resale price: $120 for a loose CD, upwards of $200 for a complete copy.

3. Suikoden II - One of the finest RPGs on the original Playstation, sadly overlooked for its "dated" 2D visuals in an era where shitty 3D models composed of eight polygons each were considered "cutting edge". What really burns my balls, though, is that this game AND its predecessor are on a compilation for the PSP, but for some reason it was never even considered for release outside of Japan! Come on, guys, take one look at eBay. See all those copies of Suikoden 1 and 2 selling for hundreds of dollars each? There's demand for those titles, get them out here at a price you won't have to take out a home loan for!
Average resale price: $200+ complete.

2. Radiant Silvergun - Or as its known to a large number of eBay sellers, "Cha-ching!". An incredible game by legendary developer Treasure, featuring just the right combination of strategy, intense difficulty, insane action and utter weirdness mashed into an overhead shooter. Unfortunately, it only received a release in Japanese arcades and for the Sega Saturn, a system which couldn't have bombed harder outside of Japan if it tried. As a result, the game received a short printing run of approximately 50,000 units; not a small amount by any means, but due to extraordinary fan demand it's frequently seen selling for over $200 online. Treasure has hinted that they may have the game follow in Ikaruga's footsteps and get a port to the Xbox LIVE service, though; here's hoping!
Average resale price: Anywhere from $195 to a fucking GRAND for a sealed copy.

1. EarthBound - A legendary game unfortunately denied its due by western audiences' rather low response to Japanese RPGs at the time of its release, then further ignored as games like Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger came in and wowed everyone with their flashy gameplay and graphics. It seemed that's deterred Nintendo of America from ever bothering with the series again, as neither the Mother 1+2 Compilation or Mother 3's Japanese release (or possibility of translation) had at all been acknowledged by them. It's been registered fairly recently on the ESRB site, suggesting a Virtual Console release, but apparently due to some arcane legal issues this hasn't yet come to pass. Regardless, here's hoping that it eventually lands on there and gives this series some of the recognition it deserves.
Average resale price: $80 for a loose cart, over $200 for a complete copy.

 

 

#10: A realization!

The plot isn't a thinly-veiled "hurg blargh organized religion is evil" rant. In fact, that fad seems to have finally gone the way of FMV games and been cast aside as a dark page in gaming's history. I'm impressed; it's almost as if people have finally realized that thinking that way (and trying to shoehorn your views into every work you create) doesn't automatically make you "smarter" and more "enlightened" than everyone who has ever lived! Besides, you're a straight-C Liberal Arts major who makes $11 an hour programming scrolling text boxes and monster AI that never rises above the level of Doom, get over yourself already.

#9: Breaks away from tradition.

There were many clever deviations and twists on series norms, almost as if they were deliberately breaking away from the old to try something new this time around. There were many new enemies that meshed well with the setting, rather than trying to include the goofball ones (Tonberries, etc) regardless of how out of place they would be. Summons weren't the standard Ifrit/Mysteriously Female Shiva/Bahamut, either; they were largely comprised of VILLAIN characters from Final Fantasy Tactics. Annoying cliches like "insane" (read: no actual motive or personality) villains and the inevitable fall-down-a-pit-into-a-dungeon scene were also successfully avoided, for the most part.

Personally, I also thought it was a clever twist that Cid was actually a villain this time around, rather than his usual role as a second-string good guy.

#8: Programmable AI.

This is something of a source of contention for the game; some people hate the Gambit system and the amount of quirks you have to puzzle out to use it effectively. Personally, I found it to be a great benefit, if only because I really got tired of games where AI-controlled partners are always idiots who waste all of their MP, run into every trap and jump headfirst into the exact same attacks over and over again, even when specifically told NOT to do so. But with this, if you've got your Gambits all set up and they're still doing stuff like that, it's probably your own damn fault and not the game designer's!

On that note...

#7: Real-time action.

That's right, everything happens in real-time now. There's no coming to a dead stop every few paces just to trade blows with monsters when all you want to do is get somewhere quickly; if you don't want to fight something, just run right past it. Even when you're actually fighting, though, you don't have to stop every few seconds to watch yet another spell animation play out; all the action's going on simultaneously, so you feel like you're PLAYING, rather than watching, battles.

#6: Balance.

One of my big beefs with the series was always its lacking sense of game balance; almost every game had a special ability that could be reached without a great deal of effort, had little cost and was so overpowered that it rendered every challenge from that point on completely moot. Let's take a quick look.

Final Fantasy I: Power up a Karate Master to level 40 or so and you can even kill the final freaking boss in a single hit. Or, barring that, just cast Fast on a mid-leveled Ninja a few times and you'll get the same result.

Final Fantasy II: In theory, you're supposed to get stronger as enemies whittle down your HP or gain more powerful spells and MP as you use magic. In practice, you can expedite this process by sitting there and beating up your allies for an hour or two every time you upgrade weapons; do that and nothing you face for the next few dungeons will have any real chance against you at all. Works up to and including the final battle.

Final Fantasy V: The samurai skill Coin Toss does thousands of damage in the stage where you'll still probably be doing low hundreds with your standard attacks, and it only gets stronger from that point on. The Game Boy Advance remake also adds the drastically overpowered Gladiator class, whose special ability randomly either misses, deals a critical hit, or inflicts 9999 elemental damage; no more, no less.

Final Fantasy VI: Cast Vanish on an enemy, then follow it with Doom or X-Zone; Vanish reduces magic resistance to zero while Doom and X-Zone are instant kill attacks. Kills nearly every normal enemy in the game, as well as 99% of the bosses.

Final Fantasy VII: Good old Knights of the Round, which does something like 91,000 damage per use for the low cost of 150 MP, can be linked to HP Absorb to negate any damage you take, and then reused infinitely via the Mime command at no additional cost.

Final Fantasy VIII: Being able to use summons at any time with no real cost was bad enough, but then along came the Limit Breaks, which completely tossed the game balance out the window. If you're quick with punching in buttons, Zell's comboes can reach into twenty or thirty hits for several thousand damage each. Irvine's best ammunition does a few thousand damage a hit, with overall number of hits only limited by how quickly you can mash the R1 button. But by far the biggest offender is and Squall's Renzokuken/Lionheart combo, which can can easily do over 180,000 damage per use with no effort required. Oh, and actually GETTING limit breaks doesn't require any work or putting yourself in any real danger, either - just drop one character's HP to a quarter or so and then mash Triangle until the option comes up.

Final Fantasy Tactics: Perhaps the prime example, there are numerous abusive abilities to employ here; Dragon Spirit or Chantage (infinite Reraise status), casting Undead on your character and then Death Sentencing him so he has three turns do whatever he wants while every enemy ignores him (and then recovering all of his HP at the end of the third turn), and so on. But the biggest standout to me is Math Skill, an ability that allows your character to cast spells on every unit on the board with no MP cost, no charge time and no danger to themself whatsoever.

Final Fantasy XII, though, fortunately mitigates this quite well. The few abilities that are abusable for huge damage totals often carry hefty penalties with them; summoning monsters removes two of your party members from the battle in favor of a stronger, but much slower one, and Quickenings, while they do a ton of damage, also drain your party's MP to zero (or close to it) after a few are chained together, which means they're best used for finishing off persistent enemies rather than relying on them to do all the fighting for you.

#5: Customizability.

In a way, it hearkens back to the games where you were able to pick your characters' specialities and tune them accordingly throughout the game. Only here, you're not limited by a class system or by a character only being able to utilize one type of weapon, thus forcing them into a mage/healer/fighter role forever. Want to make a magic user that wields a sword? Go for it. Want a tank that casts support spells? No problem. Want to stick with daggers and guns throughout the whole game? Yep, they've even got you covered there. The weapon types don't all get phased out in favor of the Generic Holy Sword of Excellence by the end; in fact, each and every weapon type has its own ultimate weapon, with various benefits and drawbacks.

But even then, the game's single most powerful weapon isn't even a sword.

#4: Costume/weapon designs aren't lopsided, impractical and generally stupid looking.

Okay, maybe it didn't desrve this high a spot on the list, but it's still something that's irked me for a while. The Buster Sword was a fairly unique idea in VII, if not especially practical in a setting rife with guns, magical cannons and the like. Then came VIII's Gunblade, a much tackier variation that fortunately has seldom ever been seen again. But then X came around, and wow; you've never seen that many useless belts, chains, zippers, metal meshes, useless adornments, engravings or shiny transparent materials on so few distinct objects in any game, and probably never will again.

Alright, Sora's Kingdom Hearts 2 costume was pretty bad too, but damn. FFX forever takes the cake in my book.

#3: Puzzles and mazes are actually PUZZLES and MAZES.

Another beef I have with the series; dungeons are generally little more than long romps through swarms of enemies, and even the few puzzles that presented themselves were tutorialed so heavily that they may as well have not even bothered implementing them. XII thankfully gets this right, with dungeons that are genuinely fun to navigate (but rarely tedious) and puzzles that actually require a fair bit of thought and, at times, bringing what you know about the game into question (having to find what walls are fake, for example).

#2: A political plot that STAYS a political plot.

Say what? The main villain actually remains a recognizable character on the side of the evil empire, and isn't really some malevolent dark god that crawls out of a magic seal in the last three hours of the game, rendering the rest of the plot generally irrelevant?

Color me impressed!

#1 Characterizations.

Well, what can I say. They weren't all one-dimensional, boring characters in FFXII; in fact, almost nobody was. Every party member had their own stake in the plot (few people were just "there"), their own memorable personalities, and none were particularly annoying. The main villain wasn't just some chump who was evil, "insane" and trying to destroy everything just for the hell of it; he and his minions had actual motives behind their actions. Even the secondary characters had some interesting traits, like characters from different regions having varying accents.

Oh yeah, and one more thing: Props on not have another useless, annoying rival character who's simply included as a cheap excuse to pad out the game with more boss fights.

Stuff I disliked.

-No Jump ability. There was a "telekinesis" ability that let short-ranged weapon users attack flying enemies, but come on, I wanted to see Basch jump right up to eye level and then shove a spear in their throat!
-No blue magic. There were a few "Skills" that were typically on the Blue list in earlier games, but those are pretty scarce, and by the time they become available they're really not that useful anyway.
-You'd better be stealing from everyone and everything to get sellable items, or you're going to be constantly low on cash. Personally, I always had a Gambit set up on my lead to steal from enemies with 100% HP and another character to target whomever the lead was targeting so that they wouldn't sit there and steal nothing over and over again. Might not the best solution available, but it worked well enough for my purposes.
- Of course, Ashe, as the female lead, looks exactly the same as every other female lead since VII. At least she managed to avoid being another utterly boring Mary Sue, though.

Oh, and Kudos for keeping the requisite annoying minigame to a single town early on and never revisiting it.

 

 

I've played a lot of RPGs, as you can probably gather from my various rants and reviews about them on my site and on Lardpirates, and I'm pretty particular about what I like in them and what I don't. I'm always fond of mixing things up a bit with puzzles and minigames, having a memorable cast of characters, having to employ a bit of strategy in battles (and no, spamming normal attacks and Limit Breaks in every fight doesn't count), and doing something new and uncoventional to the genre (provided it's well thought out and not just a cheap tack-on) is always a big bonus. But since it would be rather self-defeating to make a list of "new and fresh" ideas I liked and wanted to see more of, I figured it'd be more productive to make a list of stuff I really want to see much less - or better yet, none - of from this point on.

10. Falling down a pit as a lazy way to seperate the party or kickstart the plot.

Almost everything Square's ever made has featured such a scene, and it only grows more and more contrived each time it appears. This is the best they could come up with in a situation that logically requires the party to split? Really? Well alright, Final Fantasy VI broke trend and came up with acceptable alternatives on a few occasions. Like when Locke got sent off to a nearby town and the rest of the party was forced to flee when the Empire came knocking on their door, then split up again when Sabin leapt into the roaring river to finish off the boss they encountered on the way. Or better yet, when Kefka causes the apocalypse and the whole world's landmass gets ruined, shifted around or sunk beneath the ocean. I don't know how everyone ended up in different places all around the entire planet and nobody died, but hey, anything to avoid this lame kick-start. Or how about the final dungeon, where you must split into three parties, each of which has to fight individual bosses and flip switches to open paths for the other two groups? That was some creative design there. It's not that hard; work your brains a little!

Then again, I guess if working one's brains were a regular occurrence around the Square office, we wouldn't have to endure the embarassment that is Final Fantasy XIII and its summoned-monsters-which-are-really-Transformers-that-turn-into-motorcycles, now would we?

9. Not letting you just LEAVE the dungeon after you complete the objective. No, you have to walk all the way back out.

This one is fortunately much less prevalent of late, with spells and items that let you leave a dungeon at any time becoming much more commonplace. But it still crops up on occasion, and it's still incredibly annoying when it does. Is there any good reason to not just script my party returning to the entrance or the nearest town once I've beaten the boss and seen the plot scene unfold? It's not like I'm going to find anything new on the way back, and there's no challenge in facing more of the same enemy groups I've already beaten dozens of times. Making me retread the same ground 2-3 times is just a lazy way to make the game longer; get rid of it.

8. Seek the three statues or the four sacred objects or the seven deadly weapons of the Elder God of Busywork!

Every time this comes up I just shake my head, because I know it's going to end in one of three ways.
You gather all of the items the villain needs to conquer or destroy the planet, and you think they're safely out of his hands, but lo and behold! He'll either just swipe them from your party or break into whatever safeguard you've put them under and take them back, enabling him to start his plan regardless.
You fight your way through a dungeon, only to arrive seconds too late as the villain steals the item or destroys the sacred object. Naturally, you can't stop him because your party will either just stand there and watch, or the villain will be protected by the Plot Barrier until he's already gotten away clean.
There's only one or two major bosses left, so you're just stuck wandering through several more dungeons to get the best artillery, one piece at a time. Hooray.
Regardless which of the three is chosen, though, it's just another lazy way to pad out the game without having to really write anything.

7. Long, unskippable cutscenes and tutorials.

Yes, I know how the controller works. It's also a pretty safe bet that I already have the basic gist of how your game works; RPGs generally don't vary too much in their basic premise and operation. Occasionally I'll encounter one that's really unique and that I'll need to delve into the tutorial for (see Knights in the Nightmare), but these are very few and far between. I appreciate the gesture, but please, put these as an option on the title screen or something; I don't want to sit through it every single time I start a new save. Hell, I get discouraged from starting new saves on some games just because I know I'm not going to be having any fun for the first twenty minutes to an hour (Vandal Hearts, I'm looking at you).

But even worse than that is when spell animations or special moves take upwards of ten seconds to play out. I know you're impressed with your new graphics and you want to show them off, but put yourself in the player's shoes here; they're going to have to sit through it dozens, possibly hundreds, of times before the game is done. Have an option to turn them off, skip them, or at least speed them up a little.

6. Quests, items, etc. you basically HAVE to consult a guide for.

Almost every game falls into this trap at some point; there's some dungeon, sidequests or item hidden in an obscure place you'd never, ever think to check, or even stumble upon by dumb luck. Usually because it's either tucked away in an area that's closed off by the plot immediately after you leave, barely visible, not marked in any way, or completely defies the conventions of the game just THIS ONE TIME to throw you off. Or my favorite: a seemingly inconsequential dialog choice closing off a path that gets no show or mention anywhere in the game. I rag on the Tales games a lot for the mash-friendly gameplay and obnoxious characters, but at least they had the right idea here; townspeople actually chime in and give clues to the game's secrets, unlike 98% of RPGs where they have absolutely nothing interesting or important to contibute at all. Makes you wonder why people even bother to program them in, eh?

5. Stealth Sections

Really, what is the point of these? They're not fun, they're not challenging (they always just set you back to the cell you started in when you're caught), and more often than not they're just tedious trial-and-error puzzles as you walk out one door, find it to lead right into a guard, get set all the way back and have to make your way all the way back again to try another path. Regardless of the method, though, it's just more busywork to fill out a gameplay time quota.

4. Lousy collectible card game minigames

Were these ever fun? Or interesting? Or a well thought out way to add depth to the game? No, not really. It's just more inventory and statistics you have to keep track of, and the payoff of collecting all of these cards is almost never even worth it; 99.9% of the time, winning just earns you more cards, a miniscule amount of money, or some items you were bound to find a few dozen more of over the normal course of the game. You're not really even saving any time by getting them via the minigame, considering all the cards you have to collect, manage and sort out to maximize your chances of winning matches.

But what's even worse about these is that they seem to have supplanted mini-game sidequests that were actually pretty fun. Remember how Super Mario RPG and Final Fantasy VII integrated minigames into the main story to keep things interesting? Ever wonder why that's become such a rarity now in RPGs? I may be broad-stroking a little here, but I think these lousy, all-encompassing card game sidequests have made people afraid to ever touch the idea of "minigames" again.

3. Quest List Gameplay

Just about the quickest way to sap my enthusiasm for any game is to fall back on this tired idea. Too lazy to come up with a cohesive storyline or a way to get the player from Point A to Point B? No problem, just have them follow a generic list of quests from a hub town and take a 20/80 gamble on whether the next quest will actually advance the plot in some way or just be useless busywork! And of course, none of the enemies within can have any significant difference in levels or abilities required of the player just in case you do them radically out of order, completely removing all challenge from the game.

Quest list gameplay was adequate for the era of the Apple II RPGs in the early 80's, but even back then it was silly and tedious. There's a good reason why most gamers have stepped beyond that era of RPG gameplay and never looked back.

2. Cashing in on "Old School" gameplay

Churn out a generic, uninspired RPG with no real effort put into characterizations, story or gameplay, then just label it "Old school" so you can casually discard any criticism from people who give it negative reviews for that very reason. It's genius! Or even better yet, just say you're "combining elements of Eastern and Western RPGs" while neglecting to mention that you're combining the worst, most inconvenient and outdated tropes of both worlds, then sell it to unsuspecting suckers for a quick buck. There's a good reason old games like Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Might and Magic, Fallout and Phantasy Star continue to sell whenever they get rereleased, and it's not because they're "old school"; it's because they were trying for a unique and fun experience despite the limitations of genre and hardware, not because they were lapsing back into the same tried-and-overdone routine every couple of years.

1. The Worst Approach to Plot Scenes

Much of what I've mentioned so far has just been instances of lazy writing, or ill-convieved methods of making the game longer or more varied. But there's simply no excuse for our number one offender, because in every instance it could simply be fixed with a few hours of work, tops. You may already know what I'm talking about - those scenes were you're stuck wandering around a large building or town talking to people one at a time, over and over again, until you've finally talked to the right person to trigger a plot scene so you can move on. When the developers could have simply moved your character to the person in question and had you speak to them automatically.

Even more annoying that that, though is when you're in the middle of said plot scene, but the dialog keeps breaking off every few sentences, requiring you to walk around, speak to everyone one at a time, hearing the same lines they JUST SAID again, until you speak to the right person to get a few more lines out of everyone present, and then it stops AGAIN. Augh! What is with this? Did nobody playtest the game and say "you know, this is really irritating, you really should just have it be one continuous scene"? Did they just run out of time? Why is this such a prevalent problem to this very day?

 

 

Yeah, I'm doing another game I actually like; the first RPG I ever played and completed, in fact. Because Phantasy Star II deserves some company in the Nutshell section that isn't ass on toast.

King of Alefgard: Descendant of Erdrick, thou art the only one that can defeat the Dragonlord. Now go forth!
Hero: I'd love to, but I'm kind of trapped in this room by a magic door. Come to think of it, so are you. How did I even get in here?
King of Alefgard: Take my treasure chests so that thou can escape and buy some equipment!
Hero: I'm on a big quest to save the world from an evil fiend and you couldn't spare more than a torch and some chump change? Well, I guess if this game was easy, it wouldn't be any fun.

This early on, the hero is a gigantic wimp, and has to take a break every 3 or 4 fights to rest off all the damage he's taking, which the game charges you for each time (of course). But once you gain the Heal spell and figure out that talking to the magician guy in the castle restores your MP to full for free, the inns become pretty pointless.

This stage of the game is pretty much just a gigantic grinding session to earn levels and buy better gear, because almost every area you need to complete is blocked off by magic doors, and you don't find any more keys until you're strong enough to survive a trip through a tunnel to the southern island, and then make the perilous trek to another town where you can finally buy the damn things.

On the return trek...

Hero: Hey, I've got these keys now. I wonder what that door in the tunnel on the way here has behind it.
Dragon: ROAAAAARRRRRR
Hero: Ohhhh SHIT!

The hero is reduced to charcoal, but the King is kind enough to bring him back from the afterlife to continue his quest. But only after extorting half of his gold from him.

King: Didn't you know? That 120 gold wasn't a gift, but a loan! And I make all of my loans at 13,000% interest!
Hero: You're... kind of a douche.
King: But a rich douche!

It's at this point that you venture into the locked doors in the king's castle and realize that there's a key shop right behind his throne room.

Hero: Why could he not just loan me another key so I could save myself a lot of time and effort? What a cheapskate!

Actually, it's a pretty elegant, if shoehorned, way to get you prepared for what lies WITHIN said dungeons - the enemies would stomp you flat if you tried going in before level 10 or so. So you venture deep into Garinham's dungeon and find a Silver Harp, which - get this - summons enemies whenever you play it!

Hero: What was the point of that? I've already got enough random bad guys trying to kill me!
Nintendo Power: Don't you pay attention to the villagers? Some guy on the other end of the island wants it!
Hero: You mean that unlike 98% of all RPGs ever made, the villagers actually have vital, important things to say? Amazing!

So you talk to the guy and get the Staff of Rain, which you vaguely remember being one of the key items you need to get to the Dragonlord's keep. Nifty.

Anyway, you venture south for a while longer (after some more level grinding) and come to Hauksness, a ruined town full of really powerful and supremely annoying monsters. Rooting around doesn't reveal much until you venture into the burned out ruins of a shop, with a tree behind it where a knight with a really big axe attacks you.

Hero: Jeez. Guy hits like a damn truck, and the Sleep spell only knocks him out for a couple of turns. Must be some good shit back here.

Sure enough, you find the Armor of Erdrick, the best of its kind in the game. Not only does it make you immune to poison swamps and magic barriers, but it also lets you regenerate your HP. Sweet!

That done, you try to venture even further south to Cantlin to load up on more awesome gear, which is an unnecessarily long path north, then west, then south, then east across a giant swamp, then north again through a maze of mountains. It would be a really short trip if you had a boat or an airship, but unfortunately that hadn't become an RPG trope yet in 1986. Just before you enter Cantlin however, your path is barred by a Golem, who hits like a bullet train and takes no damage from spells!

King: Oh, hello again. I brought you back from the dead and stole half the money you were going to spend on equipment to hopefully kill the Dragonlord with and save my kingdom!
Hero: Dick.

So, anyway, you do a little research and find out you're supposed to use the Fairy Flute you found in Kol to knock the guy out, then beat him up while he's asleep.

Hero: Why couldn't I just use the Sleep spe-- nevermind.

Killing a bunch of Goldmen to make up for what the king pilfered, you buy a shiny Silver Shield and a Flame Sword for somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 bucks a pop. Now that pretty much every enemy in the game is helpless before your might, you venture back to the tunnel to teach that dragon a lesson.

Gwaelin: Oh, hello. I'm the king's daughter that he mentioned in passing when you first began your quest!
Hero: Well, that's convenient. Should we go back to the castle?
Gwaelin: Yes, but you must carry me the entire way!
Hero: Wha... why?
Gwaelin: Because I am unnecessarily lazy!

You do just that (although it is slightly amusing to lug her around for the next few hours of the game just for the hell of it), and your reward is... Gwaelin's love. Both in a literal sense and in a surreal metaphysical sense, as you get an item in your inventory called "Gwaelin's Love". Using it results in her giving you your current coordinates, but only after you sit through a lengthy dialog about how much she loves you that never changes and cannot be skipped. But you just have to put up with it because you need it to solve one of the game's biggest puzzles.

So anyway, you get back to the quest of trying to find the three key items to get to the Dragonlord's castle, learning that one is in a small shrine south of Rimuldar guarded by a wizard guy.

Wizard: Thou claim to be the descendant of Erdrick. Hast thou any proof?
Hero: What, seriously? I have his ARMOR. That's not enough?
Nintendo Power: You need the Amulet of Erdrick!
Hero: Well, where the hell do I find that?!
Nintendo Power: 70 South by 40 East.
Hero: Oh boy.

We already know that Gwaelin's Love is the key to solving this puzzle, since it gives your coordinates relative to Castle Alefgard and all. However, I still got stuck on this puzzle because I kept trying to get to 40 WEST, which is three spaces into the ocean off the western coast. I searched everywhere for a boat, looked for a way to get past the wizard for the item he had, hoping that would somehow allow me to get to it, scoured back issues of Nintendo Power, and checked every villager in every town three times over thinking I'd missed something. I agonized over this for close to two weeks until I finally realized I read the directions wrong! (Hey, I was seven years old at the time, cut me a break.)

Anyway, rooting through that gigantic swamp you had to pass through on the way to Cantlin eventually yields the amulet. Hooray!

Wizard: Thou claim to be the descendant of Erdrick. Hast thou any proof?
Hero: Here's the amulet. That enough proof for you, chief?
Wizard: Well, I was going to give you this neat item, but you need the Stones of Sunlight first.
Hero: Well, where the hell do I find those?

Wondering if that random villager with the same line of dialog might have the other item, he returns to Rimuldar.

Villager: Thou claim to be the descendant of Erdrick. Hast thou any proof?
Hero: Yeah, right here. See? Medallion of Erdrick!
Villager: Thou claim to be the descendant of Erdrick. Hast thou any proof?
Hero: I just showed you my medallion, dickface. Acknowledge me as Erdrick's descendant!
Villager: Thou claim to be the descendant of Erdrick. Hast thou any proof?
Hero: Oh, fuck you.

Retracing his steps, he talks to random villagers and learns that the stones are hidden in Castle Alefgard. However, turning the place upside-down for half an hour earns you... nothing.

Hero: Where are the damn things? This place is two screens wide by two screens tall, it can't possibly be that well hidden!

After painstakingly searching the place tile by tile, you find that they're hidden in a secret room along the RIGHT EDGE of the castle, just south of the key shop, behind that door you need a magic key for. You need to walk south from the shop along the edge of the moat, being careful not to walk too far to the right and exit to the world map, because if you do that you have to start all over again.

Hero: Why couldn't I just see and approach this room from the outside? I mean, I know it's a puzzle and all, but this just seems a little contrived even by mid-80s standards.

So anyway, you finally have the two items the wizard guy wanted.

Wizard: I say something cryptic and the screen FLICKERS DRAMATICALLY! Oh, and have this Rainbow Drop.
Hero: O...kay. The guy who wanted the harp just kind of vanished, but that works too.

Equipped with the Rainbow Drop, we can now bridge the path to the Dragonlord's keep. And when I say "bridge", it's very literal; after a psychedelic light show, it creates a bridge for you.

Hero: See, this is another example of why the king should just build a boat. I could sail the whole two tiles across the river south of Alefgard and get right to his castle and skip all this magical item fetch quest mumbo-jumbo!

Anyway, you root around in this oddly abandoned castle and find a hidden staircase behind the throne, leading into the biggest dungeon in the game. It's also full of dragons, knights, wizards, and basically every super tough generic villain imaginable. It's also got a few misleading paths in it, which is actually kind of a rarity in this game.

Ironically, one of these leads you to Erdrick's Sword, the bane of all evil!

Hero: Why the hell would he have the ONE WEAPON that can defeat him in his castle? Why would he not just, you know, destroy it or toss it into the ocean or something?

The other throw-off path leads to a neverending hallway, which I tried to go down for about twenty minutes before catching on. Again, I blame it on being seven years old.

So after backtracking and finding another route to follow, you come to the bottom of the Dragonlord's dungeon, which unlike every floor before it is fully lit and free of random enemies. You can loot his storeroom too if you want, but it's not really worth it at this stage of the game.

Dragonlord: Join me, young Skywalker, and we will rule the world together!
Hero: And what would I possibly stand to gain by abandoning this quest I've spent weeks trying to complete and following an empty promise from the lord of darkness?
Dragonlord: Your experience meter drops to 0, I emit an evil laugh and the game locks up, implying that I killed you!
Hero: ...And I get to hit Reset and do the entire dungeon again. That's weak sauce, dude.
Dragonlord: This is a 1986 game; villains didn't start thinking ahead and getting truly devious and persusasive until the 90's.
Hero: Good point.

They duke it out, which is pretty anticlimactic since the Dragonlord dies in three hits.

Hero: Well, that was... pretty easy.
Dragonlord: SURPRISE! I have another form!

The dragonlord becomes - what else - a dragon, and is much tougher this time around since he can dish out a lot of damage and none of your spells work on him. Still, if you've got the best equipment available and a decent supply of MP for healing spells, you can outlast him without too much difficulty.

Dragonlord: I am vanquished!

You get Erdrick's ball of light back, which vanquishes all random enemies in the game forevermore, and allows you to wander around to every town in the game and get congratulated by everyone. Actually, just one town will do the trick, since they all repeat the same two lines.

So you go back to Alefgard, where the king offers you his eternal gratitude and his daughter's hand in marriage. She won't take "No" for an answer no matter how many times you try to choose it, so our hero is forced to wed Gwaelin and, once again, carry her off into the sunset. The end, roll credits.

Spoony: You know, as RPGs went on, I expected to be able to explore more of the possibilities the story could take . Like here, where the game gives you a yes or no choice, but the story won't continue until you pick "Yes"; I always just thought that was a system limitation locking you to one path. I was hoping in future games that in a similar situation you could pick "No" just to see what would happen. Like, say, the King putting a hit out on you for abandoning his daughter to the dragons! A pity that idea seems to only have caught on with American RPGs on the PC, and to a lesser extent the Shin Megami Tensei series. I mean, why do they even give you a choice of two or three options in newer games, anyway? Just to tease you?

At any rate, I like the game of Dragon Warrior; it was certainly a milestone in the console RPG genre, and although it definitely shows its age nowadays due to the bare-bones story and heavy emphasis on gold gathering and level grinding, I'd much rather play this than say... Star Ocean 4 or Infinite Undiscovery.

 

 

Final Fantasy X-2's release day marked the point of no return for Square; they'd abandoned their loyal fanbase and given in to the worst aspect of anime fandom, peppering every subesquent game with the same dull, gimmicky gameplay, predictable plotlines, ridiculous over-frilled aesthetic design, and obnoxious one dimensional characterizations. Not to mention that they started releasing endless waves of terrible sequels, prequels, spinoffs and remakes to their classic games just to destroy any fond memories their older fans may have had of them whilst simultaneously stealing their money.

As for the game itself, I didn't even play it; all I saw was a video of them turning Yuna and Rikku into the fucking Spice Girls and decided "that's it, I'm not even going to waste my time on this bullshit". But on the plus side, it does give me a good trump card in arguments with Square fantards.

"Square sucks now, dude. They've made maybe two decent games in the last 10 years."
"NO WAY FUCK YOU THEY ARE THE BEST COMPANY AND WILL ALWAYS BE THEY HAVE THE BEST STORIES EVER WRITTEN AND PIONEERED SO MANY RPG TRENDS AND DON'T JUST WHORE OUT THEIR CHARACTERS AND FRANCHISES ALL THE TIME LIKE ALL THE COMPANIES YOU LI-"
"Ehrgeiz."
"THAT GAME WAS AWESOME GO BACK TO YOUR BUTTON MASHING STREET FIGHTER GAMES"
"Dirge of Cerberus"
"BEST SHOOTER EVER YOU'RE JUST TOO STUPID TO GET IT"
"Dissidia."
"THAT GAME WAS SO DEEP AND WELL MADE I MEAN ARENA FIGHTERS ONLY NEED TWO MOVES PER CHARACTER ANYWAY MAN, RANDOM WEAPONS, STAGE HAZARDS AND VARIETY IN GENERAL ARE FOR CHUMPS!"
"Unlimited SaGa"
"ITS SPELLED WITH A LOWERCASE G FAGGOT AND IT'S BRILLIANT BECAUSE ITS A TABLETOP RPG PUT INTO VIDEO GAME FORM, NEVERMIND THAT NO TABLETOP RPG I'VE EVER PLAYED ANYWHERE HAD GAME DESIGN THIS COUNTER-INTUITIVE AND GAMEPLAY THIS BORING!"
"Final Fantasy X-2."
"Uh..."
"Checkmate, asshole."

 

 

George Lucas can rest assured he's no longer the only person to ruin a classic piece of popular culture by doing everything wrong in the sequel. Hell, Square's topped his failure at least five times over by now!

Serge: I have an exciting and wonderful life in this fishing village, and I prove it by fighting the same two monsters over and over for days on end!
Leena: I'm here to partake in idle chatter, which unknown to you will affect whether or not you get an important item later in the game!
Serge: Yeah. Hey Square, next time you make a game, can you at least give some kind of clue as to what seemingly inconsequential choices will have an impact on later events? Please?

Seconds after Leena leaves, Serge gets sucked into an episode of Star Trek

Serge: All of a sudden, nobody recognizes me and everything I know is completely turned upside-down. It'd be kind of freaky if that long cinematic you watched a minute ago didn't immediately clue you in that something wasn't right.
Other Leena: You can't be Serge. Serge died ten years ago.
Serge: That's the big replacement for the time travel mechanic, huh? A parallel universe plot?
Other Leena: Yep. Everything is exactly the same except for you still being alive in the other universe.
Serge: Which somehow drastically changes the destinies of a bunch of people I've never even met.
Other Leena: You got it.
Serge: *Sigh* At least it's a better dynamic than Star Ocean 2's "choice of two protagonists with unique stories... who meet ten minutes in and never seperate for more than three minutes in the entire game".

Serge, feeling like depressing himself even further, decides to visit Other Serge's grave and gets attacked by some dickweed soldiers

Teenage Fanboy Sex Symbol Kid: Obligatory Cute Girl who never does anything, nice to meet you! ...Actually, that title could probably be applied to the entire female contingent of the cast, but we won't get into that just yet.

You're given the option of going with Kid or finding your own path, which has absolutely no lasting impact since you'll meet again in the next town and she'll force herself into your party anyway.

Kid: Come on, let's go get the Frozen Flame!
Serge: Okay. Do you have a way to get in?
Kid: No, I'm leaving that up to you.
Serge: Your big plan is to find some random person you've never met before, let them know you're planning something illegal and very dangerous, and then leave it to THEM to arrange the whole heist?
Kid: Pretty much.
Serge: I'd berate you for this, but you're obviously thirteen years old and a bit retarded, so I'd feel bad about it later.

You have the choice of being escorted there by a wasted raver in goth makeup, a poser swordsman who happens to be the worst character in the entire game, or a cool-looking magician guy. I think the choice is pretty clear.

Serge: Are you... Magus?
Guile: No. Well, kind of; I was supposed to be, but they just changed my name when they couldn't find a way to fit Magus into the plot.
Serge: You're telling me that Chrono Trigger's sequel, which revolves entirely around Schala and Lavos - two characters Magus spent the entire game obsessed with rescuing and killing respectively - couldn't even find a place to fit Magus into the story, even in a bit role?
Guile: Yep.
Serge: ...Simply stunning.

They sneak into a heavily guarded palace. The guards, being dumb as rocks and such heavy sleepers that they don't hear pitched battles taking place one room over, are easily evaded or dispatched.

Lynx: ROAR, the Frozen Flame is not yours to take. Beware my furry rage!

Apparently Kid's info was a bit off (big surprise) and you're forced to flee the castle with nothing to show for your effort.

Kid: Oh shit, Lynx poisoned me and now I'm dying.
Doc: The only thing that can cure this poison is Hydra Humour, which only the dwarves have!
Serge: Uh... okay. I'll go get it from them then.
Doc: They hate humans, though, and they have tanks. Yes, tanks. Don't ask me where they got the knowledge or materials to build the things when they live in a fucking swamp.
Serge: Well, this is a JRPG, so I'll have no trouble taking out something huge and heavily armored with nothing more than a few crappy spells and an impractical bladed weapon. Bye!

You quickly learn that Doc wasn't kidding, and that they have their entire goddamn army attacking you with everything they've got. As you can probably predict, none really stand a chance at all if you have some decent spells and a good supply of healing items. But, once you've begun a New Game Plus save and pick the other path, you learn that Kid survives regardless, so Serge now has the needless genocide of an entire species on his conscience for the rest of his life. What a great and inspiring hero!

Spoony: And his party members are no better for not even raising an objection to his statement of "Okay guys, we're going to go slay a whole species for the sake of one girl I barely know"!

At any rate, you take another whack at Lynx once that's all sorted out. He's kind of a douche, because unlike 99% of all RPG villains he's smart enough to target your weakest party members and use spells they're actually weak against.

Lynx: Time to swap bodies with the hero like in so many corny 90's cartoons!
Serge as Lynx: Uh... oh shit, wait guys, don't kill me!

Kid gets stabbed in the gut, Serge gets beaten to a pulp by his own party members, and then he gets tossed into an MC Escher painting where he meets a green troll and Harle

Harle: I speak in zis annoying French accent, and everyzing I say is cryptique. Yet for zhome reason I betrayed zhe real Lynx and am helping you instead.
Serge as Lynx: Mmkay...

An annoying puzzle or two later, they escape back to Serge's reality, where Serge is understandably disliked, being trapped in the form of the main villain and all. After a few more well-placed beatings, he convinces his village elder to help him out of this jam and they set off to find a boat. Which, not surprisingly, requires battling your way through three or four dungeons and several bosses.

Numerous dead-end subplots later...

Serge as Lynx: Okay, now we're at a big frozen ocean called the "Dead Sea". Creative name there, by the way.
Miguel: Oh, hi. I'm your dad's old buddy, remember me? Turns out I'm a slave to the big bad guy now, so we must fight to the death!

Miguel is, surprisingly, one of the hardest f'ing battles in the entire game. Why he can't just let you win, being your father's good friend and all, is a mystery, but regardless, he goes all out with ultra-powerful light spells and lays waste to your party. Especially Serge; being in Lynx's body, he is now WEAK against light spells. After several tries, you finally get him, causing time to un-freeze and finally letting you go back to the parallel dimension to continue the plot.

Spoony: I find that you're usually better off making a shorter game than padding it out with several hours of junk quests while the plot comes to a screeching halt. Take a look at Metal Gear Solid or Max Payne for good examples.

In any case, Serge gets his body back after another eye-candy FMV.

Serge: About time. Lynx's shitty skills and weakness to Light spells (which every single enemy and boss uses) sure aren't doing me any favors.

They set off for the other world's equivalent of the Dead Sea, spurred on by some Dragons who apparently convince them that there's some kind of world-ending catastrophe about to go down there. Other World's equivalent is a futuristic city thrown into the current time by something called the "Time Crash"

Spoony: Oh, so time is like Windows 98? When you put too much strain on it, it gets all fucky and you have to reboot it?

Anyway, you finally catch up to Lynx and Kid, who is apparently working with him despite that whole knife-in-the-gut business. Apparently she's even dumber than you were first led to believe!

Spoony: So uh, what were Lynx and Kid doing all this time? I've been wandering around for ages doing filler quests and meeting Dragons, and they've only beat us here by an hour or two?

Lynx: (Deep breath) Ten years ago, I was your father, who took you on a seaward trip in search of a cure to your condition after you got bitten by a panther demon. We came across this city, and by some hilarious weather phenomena the computer system FATE (very subtle name, eh?), tasked with controlling the destiny of all of humanity via the Frozen Flame, had shut down. When you came in contact with the Frozen Flame it not only healed you, but Chronopolis' circuits attuned the Flame to you so that nobody else could use it. So FATE turned me into a manifestation of your worst fear and sent me to kill you, hoping that would allow it to access the Flame again. It didn't, so FATE concocted some doofy scheme involving swapping bodies with the other you from a parallel world to take another shot at it. It apparently worked, but I'm going to kill you anyway!
Serge: ...That is, without a doubt, the DUMBEST thing I have ever heard. What kind of stupid computer system uses a biological component as a key? Especially in a world full of magic capable of body-swapping and cloning people? And moreover, why not just bypass or remove the offending circuits so you can use it again? Or, you know, just knock it offline again for a while and reset it to yourself the second time around?
Lynx: If you think that's bad, just wait until you see what the Prophet of Time has waiting for you later. Anyway, FIGHT!

Lynx, despite going through ALL THAT TROUBLE to get a duplicate of your body, ditches it and turns into some ugly monstrosity. He's another obnoxiously tough fight, but with the right party members he's not too bad. You're better off fighting him than Miguel, at least.

Dragons: SURPRISE, we were manipulating you all along! Now we shall take the Frozen Flame and become the Dragon God once again!
Serge: The what now?
Dragons: When Chronopolis went back in time, it drew part of a parallel world where the Reptites became the planet's dominant species into our world, and with it came the Dragon God, their ultimate creation capable of controlling nature itself. Chronopolis defeated the Dragon God, split it into the seven Dragons, and now we've just been waiting for our chance to wrest the Frozen Flame from FATE's hands so that we can become whole again and have our revenge!
Serge: I take back what I said about the whole FATE and Arbiter of the Frozen Flame business, this is even worse.
Dragons: If you think that's bad, you haven't seen anything yet!
Serge: So I've heard.

Harle: Oh yes, I am zhe seventh Dragon. So long!
Serge: ...And you were working with Lynx... why?
Harle: I attempted to manipulate him to betray FATE so zhat zhe Dragons could recover the Flame.
Serge: And then you joined me because...
Harle: Apparently, I have fallen for you. But not enough to convince me to betray zhe dragons.
Serge: A shoehorned romantic sub-plot. Hooray, now my life is complete!

Aaaaaaaanyway, after reading 70% of the plot mashed into less than twenty minutes of exposition, you learn that Kid has fallens into a coma again

Spoony: Again? Really, Square? You're putting Kid into another coma after I committed genocide to snap her out of the first one?! Is this girl I barely know really worth all this effort, or is this going to turn into another Rinoa situation where all I get is another hammy love plot between two of the blandest characters in existence?

It turns out to be neither; because the game has to go on regardless of what choices you make and who is in your party, 90% of all the party's dialog is completely interchangable. This also has the effect of ensuring that even the touted "main" characters have almost nothing to say or do, to say nothing of the 40-some others that round out the cast. Now that's a compelling RPG experience!

Spoony: I also take issue with this whole "multiple paths" nonsense. Usually when a game offers you a chance to take one road or the other (but not both), it's to cause some significant change in the overarching storyline. But here, there's no real consequences for any choice you're offered; the plot plays out exactly the same way every time. The only differences your choices make are that you may fight a different boss, venture through a slightly different dungeon or have the option to recruit another party member who you'll never use anyway since playable characters as a whole are so indistinct in this game. It just gives the unpleasant feeling that the game is offering you the illusion of nonlinearity just to tease you.

At any rate, after a few more dopey sub-plots, Serge gets his hands on the Masamune sword, revives Kid, and attains the ultimate element, the Chrono Cross.

Balthasar: In another "shocking" twist, I reveal that the one manipulating ALL of these events was Lavos, who apparently survived and vanished beyond time, where he fused with Schala in an attempt to become the Time Devourer, an entity capable of destroying all time and space as we know it. But lucky you, I set the events in motion that would split the timeline in two, send Kid (Schala's clone, oooo!) to save your life and eventually allow you to gain possession of the Chrono Cross in order to stop the Time Devourer from forming!
Ghosts of Crono, Lucca and Marle: Oh yeah, we apparently all died in that Guardia War that got mentioned in passing hours ago. Never mind that we eventually became so powerful that we were able to defeat an entity capable of laying waste to entire planets and manipulating time itself.
Serge: Do you hear that?
All: Hear what?
Serge: The sound of a freight train hitting this plot, jumping the tracks, throwing its cars and cargo in every direction and then exploding into a fireball?
Balthasar: Very funny, wise guy. Go fight the Dragon God.
Serge: *Sigh* Fine. I've sunk this much time into this crummy game, I might as well see it through to the end.

Fight ensues, fight gets won, blah blah blah. Now all there is left to do is face the Time Devourer, who can only be beaten via a method that everyone gives you a clue or two about.

Once you've pieced together the clues, you figure out how you have to beat on the Devourer for a while, cast six spells in a specific order, then finish the sequence with the Chrono Cross to win the battle. Fair enough. But what they don't tell you is that the Time Devourer's spells count in this sequence as well. This quickly becomes a frustrating ordeal as you get partway done, then watch helplessly as the asshole casts the wrong spell again and screws up the whole sequence. Which leaves you no choice but to continue with the fight and get the shitty ending, or run from the battle and try again.

After many, many tries, the right sequence finally plays out and Serge is able to use the Chrono Cross properly. The Time Devourer dies, and as you might expect, all you get is a lame ending that doesn't satisfy on any level. Hooray.

Spoony: Yeeeeeah. To be fair, it's not as bad as some of Square's other turds of the time like Final Fantasy VIII, Parasite Eve II and Ehrgeiz; the game is decently paced, avoids a lot of annoying cliches of the genre, has an interesting combat system, an excellent soundtrack what are doubtlessly the best visuals on the Playstation, and it rarely gets bogged down with stupid minigames or tedious item-farming busywork. But none of this can redeem the stupid plot, the numerous useless subplots, the needlessly large and dull cast of characters, and the letdown associated with it being the long-awaited sequel to one of the greatest RPGs ever made.

If you want my advice, skip this mind dump and play Suikoden II instead. Not only does it balance a large cast of characters much more effectively than Chrono Cross, it stays much truer to its predecessor's themes and gameplay style. It may not look or sound nearly as good as CC, but believe me, when it comes to what counts it's a far better game.

 

 

In commemoration of the holiday season, let us look at the bosses that make you throw the controller at the TV while screaming "FUUUUUUUUCK!"

Za-Zohar (Silhouette Mirage) - This monster is one hell of an endurance match; not only does he have a ton of health, you face him right after fighting Zohar's toughest incarnation, which is no pushover in itself. Worse, you have no means of recovering spirit energy during the fight except to sacrifice your Parasites, and most of his attacks can flatten you with four or five hits. He gets even more hectic when his health drops below half; at that point his lower half will seperate and jet across the battlefield to damage you, or just hang in the background and douse the entire narrow platform you're standing on in highly damaging laser beams. Fortunately Treasure isn't completely heartless, and gives you a chance to refill your health and Parasites after the battle - for a price!

Reaper (Silhouette Mirage) - The Reaper also comes after two tricky boss battles, and he's both fast and ruthless, unleashing huge flurries of projectiles and potentially dropping you from full to nil health if his whirling scythe catches you. He also has quite a bit of health to contend with; it's not nearly as much as Za-Zohar, but he stretches it out to the fullest by going Normal attribute at the worst possible times (which makes him immune to both of your elements).

Fire Leo (Viewtiful Joe) - Well, now this guy's a pain. First comes the arduous task of avoiding all of his attacks, then figuring out his weakness - he's surrounded by a fire barrier that will damage you unless you pummel the rocks he drops to heat yourself up. Then you have to dodge all five of his rapid swipes in order to maybe - MAYBE - get a few solid blows in while he's reeling. After that he leaps into the lava and begins again, getting faster and faster each time until he's charging around faster than Sonic the Hedgehog on speedballs, and swinging at you even more rapidly than that! He's a pretty difficult boss on his own merits, but the worst part about him is that you have to fight four bosses in a row before you get to him, and only get a brief stop at the in-game store before the showdown with Leo; die at him and you get to do the whole gauntlet again. Fortunately, they learned from that mistake in VJ2 and allowed you to save between boss battles during the final gauntlet.

Swordmaster (God Hand) - Like most God Hand bosses, this guy has a ton of health, and can take a large chunk of yours away with just a few solid hits. Also, due to wielding his sword, his attacks are notoriously difficult to dodge; you'll think you can dodge left or right to avoid his downward swing, but you'll still get clipped 50% of the time. But that's not the worst of it, oh no. When you've chipped a large chunk of health off, he'll perform a duplication technique and split into anywhere from three to FIVE Swordmasters, all swinging at you at once and whittling your health down to nothing in one fast combo. I had to abuse Drunken Sweep to beat the guy both times through the game; you're just barely too low to be hit by most of his attacks with it.

Igniz (King of Fighters 2001) - King of Fighters is notorious for its tough endgame bosses, but Igniz is easily the worst offender in my book. Sure, his AI is lousy, but that hardly matters when you're THIS DAMN POWERFUL. The guy will literally juggle you in the air for 100% damage if he feels like it, and occasionally he'll pause for a brief reprieve, only to bust out one of his enormous energy waves or black hole attacks for 75% of your health bar. Also like most SNK bosses, his attacks have great priority over most every other character's, so you're pretty much SOL if you go in for an attack and he decides to counter. Even with the ability to chop his health to 1/3rd after dying and continuing, it's still a massively uphill battle.

Matador (Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne) - For an early game boss, this guy doesn't screw around. Right from the get-go he boosts his agility stat to maximum, making him both extremely accurate and hard to hit himself, and then he lays down serious pain with wind spells. Should you manage to survive that, he'll bolster his critical rate and then lay down powerful multi-hitting physical attacks, which strike randomly 1-3 times a turn, and two solid hits (or one critical) can send most any character to the grave. A boss that requires either some serious grinding and optimizing via the fusion system, or a ton of luck.

Sarevok (Baldur's Gate) - I honestly have no idea how they expect you to beat this guy without cheating; he has tons of health, ridiculously high armor class and is powerful enough to cleave you in two with only a few solid hits. But it gets better; his room is comprehensively boobytrapped (and you cannot disable them no matter how high level your Thieves are), and he has a few pet mages to fling fireballs and cast all sorts of debilitating status effects on you, leaving you easy prey for Sarevok's blade. My only chance at beating him was to discreetly take out his mages with firebombs (they apparently don't notice the waves of fire burning them to death, just as long as they don't see you throwing them), then luring him to the end of the chamber opposite the traps, then having him chase my main character around while my backup characters slowly pelt him to death with magic missiles and arrows.

Sephioth (Kingdom Hearts) - Anyone who tells you this is an easy game has obviously never fought this terror of an optional boss. He'll teleport behind you in the middle of a combo and jab you for a large chunk of damage. He'll charge toward you, sword flailing, you unable to get close because he has much greater reach than your dinky Keyblade. He'll even go completely invincible and send enormous rocks circling the arena once in a while. But most annoying of all is his trademark "Sin Harvest", which reduces you to a single HP and drains all of your MP, which is almost invariably followed up by a quick teleport and a sword through the back for an immediate loss. That, and he has something like seven health bars you have to whittle away at, and any items you use during the fight (and believe me, you will need them to counter Sin Harvest) won't be returned, even if you die.

EDIT: Shyna also informs me that Sin Harvest is an instant kill if you don't have Second Chance equipped. So even more frustration abound!

Vamp (Metal Gear Solid 2) - Easily the toughest fight in the game; he takes tons of damage, dishes out more than his share himself, and he can seemingly go invincible whenever he wants. Better yet, every few hits he'll just dive into the water in the center of the room, only emerging to charge right at you while invincible and knife you in the back. And like any boss, he gradually gets faster and faster as you whittle down his health, which really gets hectic when there's knives flying at you from every angle and the guy's charging at you ready to slit your through all at the same time.

Akuma (Super Street Fighter II Turbo) - Born from the infamous "Sheng Long" rumor, Akuma came to the final version of Street Fighter II to steal millions of quarters worldwide, and did so with gusto. With uppercuts and fireballs that can drain half your health bar, ridiculous attack priority, the ability to teleport around any time he wishes and the ever-annoying double air fireball, he'll beat you senseless and then call you a worthless shit on the continue screen. Many, many times.

Most frustrating battles: Yukari/Mitsuru (P3 FES: The Answer)

Alright, I'll see if I can explain this without spoiling too much.

Toward the end of the Answer, you, as Aigis, end up fighting your teammates in pairs of two, with only Metis to back you up. For those not familiar with her, Metis is a largely physical-based character; most of her skills are of the HP-draining physical attack variety, and her Persona has no elemental strengths or weaknesses whatsoever. While this can be useful in many of the Answer's earlier boss battles, wherein bosses will almost always be able to strike at at least one characters' weak points, it's a burden here as you can't really protect her against ANY of the high-level spells being thrown around.

But back to the teammates you're facing. Following RPG Cliche rules, they lose their elemental weaknesses during these battles and are much, much stronger than they ever were when in your party. That said, the first two sets aren't so bad; first you face Ken and Akihiko, who both use lightning spells (thus you can counter both with one lightning-resistant Persona). Next up are Koromaru and Junpei; this one's a bit harder, since Junpei likes to use physical skills that often get crits (and earn him free turns to use MORE skills), but it's still manageable.

The REAL shitsucker, though, comes when Yukari and Mitsuru show up. First of all, they use differing elements (wind and ice respectively), which makes it difficult to select a good Persona for the job; a Persona strong against one element will often be wide open to the other. Second, since Metis can't resist either, one combination of a top level spell from Yukari and a Mind Charged spell from Mitsuru will usually kill her outright. You'll end up spending a ton of MP and items to keep her alive.

Second, Mitsuru retains her status spells here. Any other time in the game, they'd be a constant source of frustration as she'd waste all of her MP casting them on enemies over and over again to no effect instead of healing someone who is in desperate need. But of course, when they're trained on YOU, they work with annoying frequency. And since they inflict two of the game's most debilitating statuses (Silence and Confuse), just ONE of them landing on a single character can end your chance at victory right then and there unless you're exceptionally lucky.

Finally, and perhaps worst of all, is that they employ the same tactic as the game's optional boss; that is, if you try to equip items or Personas that completely negate their elemental spells, they'll simply bust out a high-level Almighty spell instead. For the uninitiated, Almighty spells are pretty much the ultimate last resort; in your hands, they cost a ton of MP to use and usually do only average damage, but they cannot be blocked, absorbed or reflected. In the CPU's hands, however, it's pretty much the ultimate "FUCK YOU" spell; bosses never have to worry about MP, the attacks do tons of damage and, of course, they cannot be blocked, absorbed or reflected. And if Mitsuru uses one right after a Mind Charge.... yeah, there's absolutely nothing you can do. The fight's over and you've lost.

To conclude, this one resulted in hours of anguished grinding, numerous convoluted fusions to get just the right set of Personas and abilities for the battle, and outright fury as they killed me again and again with the same cheap combinations or landed a single status effect that completely ruined me. It was to my GREAT relief that the final battle followed the usual Megaten trend and ended up being quite easy in comparison.

There's a few picks from me, Shyna and Maid, post a few of your own!