I love JRPGs, and I don't know why. I can definitely see the flaws in the concept of a story-driven game. But sometimes the stories are really good or the game play is interesting enough to escape the scorn of my heart. But then there are just some things that I can't forgive, some cliches that appear in JRPGs over and over again that remain unchallenged. They are thus:
Oh, I Was Supposed to Die
Boss battles are always put in games as the challenge moments, to take all your experience and put it to good use. But sometimes, what seems like a particularly difficult challenge, ends up being a trick. It's the boss fight you were SUPPOSED to lose. Oh, well thank you game. Thank you for telling me that I was supposed to lose this fight. I only spent all of my items keeping my pathetic team alive, and it was all for nothing. Now I have to reset and die properly. Why do JRPGs even let us control these fights if we can't determine the outcome? What's worse is sometimes the fights almost look winnable until the big boss person unleashing move of ultimate destruction #27 on us and wipes everyone out in one hit. To be fair, there are some fights that are just overly difficult, but not impossible, and people use those as 'oh, I beat the game at its own... game' moments (Xenogears). But there aren't enough to warrant what should've been a cut-scene. Biggest offender: Eternal Sonata.
They Left and They Took My Stuff!
I don't know how this keeps happening in Japanese RPGs but it's annoying each and every single time it happens. You spend all this time and money to buff up the gear of a non-main character and due to the plot's own discretion, that character leaves. Oh, and they took all your stuff with them. There's nothing like seeing a character go and then checking your inventory to see all that gear mysteriously absent. I don't know if it's just stupidity on the development side or maybe there's some concept that I'm not getting, but it has to stop. I'd like to think it was only old JRPGs that did this, but no, even modern JRPGs continue this trend of torment. Latest examples I can think of are the Final Fantasy IV DS edition which has characters moving in and out of the party like there's a revolving door and often at unpredictable times, and Eternal Sonata which makes you think you're keeping all the characters till the end of the game, just to lose a few near the end. How hard is it to really just take off the gear before they leave? I've seen games do it, it's not hard to figure out.
To add insult to injury, sometimes the characters never come back; or when they do, they have completely new gear. And while I'm on the subject, stop giving us awesome characters which we can't remove their awesome gear from. There's never really a good reason, the game only gives you the 'this gear can only be worn by this person' excuse. Yeah, like no one else in the fricken group can figure out how to put on a hat. Biggest offender: Final Fantasy IV.
There's Nothing Stopping Me...
There's nothing like exploring the vast fantasy world of a game, with its surreal environments and strange inhabitants, only to find the end of it all and its an invisible wall. Or how about when you want to move from one vertical plane to the next, only to just get stuck walkign in place. Since most JRPGs don't have a jump button, and no, contextual jumping 'spots' do NOT count (FFXIII, FFX-2), they just throw up invisible walls to stop people from moving vertically across anything. Or when there's a little opening between two walls which no developer put anything there to stop you, you run into an invisible wall. It's not like JRPGs are complicated enough to need all buttons on a standard controller, so programming a jump button shouldn't be a problem. The westerners seemed to have figured it out, so what's going on in Japan? Have they not figured out that bending the knees and propelling one's self upwards is possible? That for a brief moment, humans can accelerate upwards fast enough to overcome gravity?
Even worse is when there's an open field and suddenly you just stop because there literally is no more world past that view point. It's like you just ran into some Truman Show moment where you found the edge of your little world. How hard is it to program a wall? It's not just JRPGs that do this, its most RPGs in general. Biggest offender: Final Fantasy XI.
Death and Deja Vu
So you're at the boss that's been building up the entire dungeon. Because its a JRPG, there of course has to be a dialog to reassert who is good and who is bad for some arbitrary reason. In doing so, there's a long, unskippable cut-scene. Fine, I can deal with that. But now I'm in the fight and I've just lost. Perfect, time to watch the whole thing again. I also have found that the harder the boss, the longer the cut-scene is. I guess the designers thought we'd need to be reinvigorated by the on-screen antics of the characters to get excited for the battle again, but at least give us the option to skip it. Or worse when it's just dialog and no cinematics. Now I have to mash the 'X' button to get through the conversation so I can mash the 'X' button some more to win the fight. Biggest offender: Tales of games and Eternal Sonata.
And now while I'm on THIS subject. Why can't I skip every scene in the game? Radiant Historia got it right. You can just blow past all the dialog, scenes and crap to get back to the game play, but rarely does a game even tease the notion that people might want to go through it again and not have to deal with whiny character #420 talking about how they're not good enough. Chrono Cross had an interesting solution to this problem by having a fast forward button for the entire game. Literally holding down a button will cause everything to speed up twice its normal speed which was made for the sole purpose of having people who have beaten the game more than once to go through it faster. Biggest Offender: Final Fantasy X.
Feel Like I'm Missing Something
There are many reasons to replay a game. Different endings, branching paths or maybe you just really like it. But one reason shouldn't be because you missed some item along the way and the game closes the door on that location forever. It doesn't necessarily have to be an item, it can be an ability or enemy type or some collectable that is just never available again. It wouldn't be as bad, but then JRPGs start to track this stuff with bestiaries and item collections. They're just taunting us at this point. So now that I've missed their stupid item that they placed in some unnoticeable part of the world that for some reason I can't return to, and now I have to begrudgingly play through the entire game again while I look at a guide just so this crap doesn't happen again. Biggest offender: any Tales of game.
Been There, Done That
A well-paced game keeps the action going. Getting to new dungeons, finding out more bits of the plot, becoming stronger; it's really the only thing that keeps us playing. But then, for some reason, the plot summons us back to a dungeon or level we've already been to to collect something we couldn't pick up before or talk to some idiot that wasn't there the first time. Not only do we have to back track through old territory, but we have the same random encounters we had the first time we were there. What went from a decent challenge is now a nuisance. It's like swatting away gnats that continuously pester you until you leave. Biggest offender: Star Ocean: First Departure.
I'm Just Really Emotional Right Now
Tragedy isn't uncommon in JRPGs. It's often that these moments that bring the characters to the brink of despair just to build them up again makes the game that much more memorable. And then there are times where those characters just keep whining about it for half the game. This isn't strictly a JRPG problem as it is a character problem in general. I'm talking about that youthful, whiny character that complains about every little thing along the way. I'm essentially referring to Hope from Final Fantasy XIII. Yes, your mother somehow died in a fall where as other main character just walked away from, that's sad. Now you blame Snow for everything, fine. Deal with it or murder Snow. Don't talk about it for 10 hours. It's one of the few times I'd rather hear Vanille speak. Okay, I don't really mean that. But still, maybe let the anger or despair build up internally, and let us observe for ourselves how the character is being overcome and eaten away but his own feelings of rage and sorrow instead of OH HEY LOOK I'M SAD BECAUSE SAD THINGS HAPPENED TO ME. WATCH ME KEEP BEING SAD AS I TELL OTHER CHARACTERS HOW SAD I AM ALL THE TIME. Biggest offender: Hope from Final Fantasy XIII.
HEAL ME
Bad AI is one thing. It's quite another when you are dependent on it to live. I'm talking about when the computer takes over healing duties, only to botch it up worse than the Hindenburg and everyone dies. There have been ways developed to overcome non-player controlled allies through gambits or pre-defined behavior mechanics like Dragon Age: Origin, but then there are games that are either pretentious enough or stupid enough to think that an AI is better than direct, player input. Unfortunately, the worst AI seems to come from the healer all the time. They're either busy looking at flowers while enemies trample the rest of the party to death, or they're too stupid to realize that reviving another healer will effectively double the healing potential of the group, and thus the better chance of surviving. Biggest offender: Final Fantasy XIII.
Often times, its actually the offensive AI that's dumb as box of rocks. It's rare, but I've seen it happen: the AI instead heals the party or cures a status effect instead of dealing the final blow to a boss, and then that boss wipes out the entire group in the next turn. I wish I could reach in and grab people from within my TV just for this purpose. Biggest offender: Persona 3.
You Want Me to do What?
Nothing like playing an RPG just to have completely obscure game play mechanics thrown at you from no where. I'm talking about those weird moments where the game designers forgot they were working on a role-playing game, and decided to make something else for a while. Whether it's a weird mini-game section, or a piece of another game shoe-horned in, there's almost nothing quite as jarring. Like in Crisis Core where you're forced to pursue a stealth approach to an entrance and all the game gives you is a mini map with enemy dots. Thanks game. You do realize that entire games have been developed around the concept of stealth: offering various camera control methods, ways to track the enemies, tools to help sneak from one side of the room to another, and you've replaced all that with a single mini-map. Wow. If only Hideo Kojima knew it was just that easy. It's practically insulting to the entire stealth genre. Or the moment in Final Fantasy X-2 where you have to sync up camera angles to a dance number on the Celsius or some crap like that. Just a dumb mini-game that kills you inside to do, but if you made it to that point in Final Fantasy X-2, you were probably dead inside anyways. Also, you can just mash buttons during that mini-game and get a perfect score. Nice programming. Biggest offender: Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII.
You're Sick
It's bad enough that enemies can dish out the damage and heal themselves, but there are also those that specialize in indirect methods of dealing death. It wouldn't be an RPG without status effects. I could pretty much list every single one of them here since they're all annoying to deal with, but I'll talk about the one's that have caused me a lot of personal pain.
Confusion: when an enemy makes your character confused so they attack wildly in any direction, often, at themselves. Of course, there's a small chance they'll still attack the enemy, but they never do. It get's particularly annoying in Pokemon when you have a 50/50 shot and you hit yourself 3 times in a row. Biggest offender: Pokemon (all of them).
Stone: this one is extra annoying because you need to have other members to heal you. And when all your members are stoned, it's game over. What's worse is when petrification is an added effect to an enemy's normal attack or they just spam the move / spell / ability over and over. Biggest offender: tie between Final Fantasy II and Tales of Phantasia.
Death: difficulty and strategy go out the window with this. Death is just what it sounds like, death. You're characters are dead, deceased, they are no more, they've ceased to be, kicked the bucket, pushing up daisies, etc. Death has shown its face in various forms, some times as spells, sometimes as an enemy or sometimes as a surprise in a treasure chest but it is never welcome. Worst is when an enemy can keep using it over and over again, or when the game inflicts it upon you because you're taking too long to beat a boss (Final Fantasy XIII). Biggest offender: Final Fantasy XI for having an enemy that has death as an added effect to their normal attack.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
The SEO Universe
SEO - Search Engine Optimization. The goal is to get noticed on the web. And from a very limited view, that is what SEO is. But the further you dive into the inner workings of what it takes to get noticed on the web, you begin to realize that there's more to it than that. I see SEO not as a optimizing for search engines, but taking control of your (the client's) part of the universe.
Think of web presence as a universal model. The universe is the web; the bigger celestial bodies (websites / web presence) will attract the most planets (people / visitors). The bigger something is, the more gravity it has, ergo the more planets revolve around it. The same goes for the web. The more presence you have on the web and the better quality content you have, the more people will gravitate towards it. What the result is, is several clusters of giant celestial bodies that control their area of the universe (the web) while smaller stars revolve around them, and those smaller stars eventually find their own group of planets that gather around it and thrive on it. I refer to stars as web presence because just saying website is too narrow-minded and the point I want to make is your presence is everything on the web, not just one thing.
What most all search engines allow you to do is gather as many visitors as you can, and make yourself bigger; basically compounding your size to give you more gravity. But in order to gain more visitors, you have to strive to be as big as your competition. All things being equal, the bigger your star, the more likely you'll grow. Size requirements are controlled by what your star is for. If you're a local business, your star has to compete with the other business stars that are also local, which means you can get away with being a red dwarf, because they're not that big either. You might not be as big as Amazon (Betelgeuse, a star bigger than our sun), but you don't need to be because you have your own local market. But if you want to go up against VY Canis Majoris (largest star in the known universe), you'd better be just as big. So do you just need a big star for the sake of having one? No, there's more to it than that. Web presence is like the various elements that make up a star; a good mixture and balance will having you shining bright, a bad one means boom! and a few planets disappear. So what's the right mixture? Let's talk about our elements first.
Little pieces of you exist all over the web. Every social media website, every blog post, every picture, everything is just one more piece of you that exists out there somewhere. These little pieces are the various elements that determine whether your star shines as bright as the next one. And to help that, you first must take control of them because one wrong element can hurt you. Wrong meaning, if wrong information exists about you like an address for a business or a phone number, the more caustic your mixture will be. But if you control all these different pieces and bring them together, the easier it is to glow. Wrong also means the quality of your elements. You don't want to combine trash to make a star. By trash I mean bad content that has nothing to do with your star, and nothing to do with the planets you want to revolve around it. Give planets what they need to survive and prosper; the reason they revolve around your star. Give your star enough trash, it'll turn supernova and result in a black hole of which nothing can escape (search engines will slam you) and your part of space becomes empty.
This is what SEO is now. It's the mixture of your star. The mixture used to involve the technical details trying to present itself to the universe in such a way to gain approval, but now its the planets that have the power. That's not to say the universe doesn't play a part, because it does, but the universe cares about the planets and what they need to survive.
So how do I create my star? How do I figure out just the right mixture? Like combining elements in a laboratory, you need to know what you're doing, or you need to consult a scientist (SEO engineer). But unlike the perfection that is combining elements together to form atoms and molecules, there's no perfect formula to creating a star. But a scientist can't do it alone, we only know how to combine the elements once we have them, we can't create them for you (we can but we're not experts at what you do). The elements are your content; what your web presence will be about. If you're a business, you know your business and your industry the best. Thus, working with a scientist in creating the elements is the best way to create a shining star. Do you have 3rd party listings in various directory sites? Those are elements. Do you have a Facebook page or Twitter account? Those are elements. And your scientist needs to know about them all, and more importantly, you need to know about them and take control of them.
Scientists may not have perfected the formula, but we can measure the quality of your elements and get a good idea. Here's what we figured out so far: content of your web presence, amount of content of your web presence, consistency of the presence, people who link to your presence and how often your presence changes. These are the elements you can control and influence, the rest is up to the scientist.
It's the scientist's job to take all those elements and combine them into a star. The star can be just one website or a website plus advertisements, or it can just be a Facebook page. Whatever it is, your path to shining means being proactive about controlling your part of the universe.
Think of web presence as a universal model. The universe is the web; the bigger celestial bodies (websites / web presence) will attract the most planets (people / visitors). The bigger something is, the more gravity it has, ergo the more planets revolve around it. The same goes for the web. The more presence you have on the web and the better quality content you have, the more people will gravitate towards it. What the result is, is several clusters of giant celestial bodies that control their area of the universe (the web) while smaller stars revolve around them, and those smaller stars eventually find their own group of planets that gather around it and thrive on it. I refer to stars as web presence because just saying website is too narrow-minded and the point I want to make is your presence is everything on the web, not just one thing.
What most all search engines allow you to do is gather as many visitors as you can, and make yourself bigger; basically compounding your size to give you more gravity. But in order to gain more visitors, you have to strive to be as big as your competition. All things being equal, the bigger your star, the more likely you'll grow. Size requirements are controlled by what your star is for. If you're a local business, your star has to compete with the other business stars that are also local, which means you can get away with being a red dwarf, because they're not that big either. You might not be as big as Amazon (Betelgeuse, a star bigger than our sun), but you don't need to be because you have your own local market. But if you want to go up against VY Canis Majoris (largest star in the known universe), you'd better be just as big. So do you just need a big star for the sake of having one? No, there's more to it than that. Web presence is like the various elements that make up a star; a good mixture and balance will having you shining bright, a bad one means boom! and a few planets disappear. So what's the right mixture? Let's talk about our elements first.
Little pieces of you exist all over the web. Every social media website, every blog post, every picture, everything is just one more piece of you that exists out there somewhere. These little pieces are the various elements that determine whether your star shines as bright as the next one. And to help that, you first must take control of them because one wrong element can hurt you. Wrong meaning, if wrong information exists about you like an address for a business or a phone number, the more caustic your mixture will be. But if you control all these different pieces and bring them together, the easier it is to glow. Wrong also means the quality of your elements. You don't want to combine trash to make a star. By trash I mean bad content that has nothing to do with your star, and nothing to do with the planets you want to revolve around it. Give planets what they need to survive and prosper; the reason they revolve around your star. Give your star enough trash, it'll turn supernova and result in a black hole of which nothing can escape (search engines will slam you) and your part of space becomes empty.
This is what SEO is now. It's the mixture of your star. The mixture used to involve the technical details trying to present itself to the universe in such a way to gain approval, but now its the planets that have the power. That's not to say the universe doesn't play a part, because it does, but the universe cares about the planets and what they need to survive.
So how do I create my star? How do I figure out just the right mixture? Like combining elements in a laboratory, you need to know what you're doing, or you need to consult a scientist (SEO engineer). But unlike the perfection that is combining elements together to form atoms and molecules, there's no perfect formula to creating a star. But a scientist can't do it alone, we only know how to combine the elements once we have them, we can't create them for you (we can but we're not experts at what you do). The elements are your content; what your web presence will be about. If you're a business, you know your business and your industry the best. Thus, working with a scientist in creating the elements is the best way to create a shining star. Do you have 3rd party listings in various directory sites? Those are elements. Do you have a Facebook page or Twitter account? Those are elements. And your scientist needs to know about them all, and more importantly, you need to know about them and take control of them.
Scientists may not have perfected the formula, but we can measure the quality of your elements and get a good idea. Here's what we figured out so far: content of your web presence, amount of content of your web presence, consistency of the presence, people who link to your presence and how often your presence changes. These are the elements you can control and influence, the rest is up to the scientist.
It's the scientist's job to take all those elements and combine them into a star. The star can be just one website or a website plus advertisements, or it can just be a Facebook page. Whatever it is, your path to shining means being proactive about controlling your part of the universe.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Okami Den Review
When asked to make a follow-up to one of the greatest games of the last decade, there's a lot of pressure to live up to the expectations of your niche fan base, the worse of all fan bases to design for. Capcom might have dodged the issue by making Okami den for the DS and thus, comes with the inherent notion of 'this game won't be as good'. Fact is: Okami den isn't as good as Okami and it won't escape the wrath of this gamer.
I have a few minutes, let's talk about what's good. The graphics. Usually there's not a lot to stay about graphics, but one thing Okami and Okami den do well is represent the concept the games stand for, Japanese-style paintings set in the era they were popularized in and mix the concept of painting into the game play. And that's what Okami den does, it manages to take that style and shrink it down well. The DS does very little to hinder the graphic style from Okami which is quite the impressive feat. Though some of the areas aren't as big as a result, its still nice to look at.
And that's a theme Okami den establishes, not as big. Everything has been shrunk down for this game which is on a smaller platform. Usually a game doesn't try to draw attention to the fact that their handheld installment isn't as grand as it's console counterpart, but it works well enough for the most part. Okami had Amaterasu, Okami den has Chibiterasu, Okami had a lot of fun things to do, Okami den doesn't have that much to do, Okami had a huge country to explore, Okami den has a smaller world, Okami had a lot of innovation and good ideas, Okami den has those same ideas and almost none that are original.
Chibiterasu, fittingly named because she is just a smaller version of Ammy from the first game, is a nice twist on an established formula. Chibi animates well and has a similar personality, but it doesn't come out as much through the plot. The best thing you'll get is reactionary cuts when the game's various partners give Chibi a nickname, or dance with her. Go ahead and YouTube that if you have the time. It's adorable. The supporting cast mostly comes from the various partners you'll cart around the lands and dungeons. Okami left you with Issun for the entire game, but Okami den will rotate partners out which is refreshing. All the characters have their own personality and contribute something different to the game play and combat, but only in a minor way. The rest of the cast is a mix of old characters and people that really one have 1 scene before not being noticed for the rest of the game.
The plot suffers from similar symptoms of Okami, in that, it doesn't start up right away and drags for a while before everything gets going. Okami den's real plot doesn't start halfway through the game, the first half is spent doing miscellaneous tasks and fetching things. Even then, nothing is really ever built up or conveyed as dramatic. Okami did a good job of building up the villains and the evil that they were spreading over the land, Okami den tosses in some bad guy and, due to the lack of characters or elements effected by the evil, you really don't feel the destruction of Nippon like you did in Okami.
Speaking of the evil, combat has taken a step back. Due to the technical limitations of the DS, combat is sluggish. Chibiterasu doesn't control as well as her mom. Turning is cumbersome and attacking seems inaccurate when you're trying to combo. While this all might make the game sound hard, it really isn't. Combat doesn't get challenging until the final bosses, otherwise, its just going through the brush strokes to take care of the limited amount of types of enemies running around. Now would be a good time to mention one of Okami's selling points is, you're a sun god and use a celestial brush to fight and interact with the world. Need the sun to rise? Paint it. Need the wind to blow? Paint it. Need Namco to release Tales of Vesperia for the PS3 in the US? Tough luck.
Over the course of the game, other gods will give you their abilities to aid you on your journey. Unfortunately, Okami den cuts down on new brush moves to use. You'll see a lot of repeats from Okami and not a lot of new entries. You'll have the standard bomb, wind, sun, and slash; but those will be mixed with magnetism and that's it. It's a little disappointing that Okami was brimming over with such new ideas and Okami den doesn't offer as much or any. Magnetism isn't exactly applicable to a lot of areas and not really fun to use. There are some upgrades you can get for brush moves, which is nice, but they don't really add too much to the game, and aren't necessary.
Brush moves aren't the only thing you'll be missing in this game, side quests have been trimmed down as well. In Okami, you could feed animals, play memorization with those blocks, bark at stuff, fish, etc. Okami den gets rid of all that, barking included, and replaces it with nothing. You can collect items but that's just as fun as it sounds.
The dungeon, puzzle-solving game play of Okami was inspired from Zelda's formula but had a few new twists. Okami den's dungeons took the partner-based mechanics from Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, and were about as twisted as a straight line. It would've been nice to see new ideas for controlling a partner's movements via a stylus and your own movements with the d-pad, but it was not meant to be.
Overall, the game doesn't have any deal-breaking moments, until the final dungeon. The game not only makes you fight every single boss in the game again, Capcom tradition at this point, it makes you go through waves of enemies in a copied and pasted twice room which accumulates to about 1 more hour of game play you didn't need to experience. Then you fight a disembodied head with two hands. I don't enjoy pointing out this cop out final boss set up. I really don't. It bothers me that people keep using it when the idea barrel reaches the bottom. And I can forgive it if a game makes up for it with a plethora of ideas along the way. But Okami den doesn't justify its existence in any way.
Okami was a game that needed a console sequel to do it justice. The touch-screen controls feel right, but so would a Wii mote. Okami has proven that its formula does well on the Wii, and the Wii can support its graphic styling while not limiting the game play.
On its own merits, Okami den is just ok. It's not a terrible game by any means, but it doesn't come close to matching the greatness Okami is. It feels like Capcom wanted to capitalize on the underground, niche success Okami had, thinking it would drive sales towards Okami den when Clover Studios had closed down, making any more games feel like an impossibility. And all I can say is, it worked. I bought the game. It will always be a shame Okami never sold as much as it should have. In an industry where mediocre sells better than great, Okami was just another casualty. But it'll be less of a tragedy when Okami den doesn't sell a lot, mediocre status and all.
I have a few minutes, let's talk about what's good. The graphics. Usually there's not a lot to stay about graphics, but one thing Okami and Okami den do well is represent the concept the games stand for, Japanese-style paintings set in the era they were popularized in and mix the concept of painting into the game play. And that's what Okami den does, it manages to take that style and shrink it down well. The DS does very little to hinder the graphic style from Okami which is quite the impressive feat. Though some of the areas aren't as big as a result, its still nice to look at.
And that's a theme Okami den establishes, not as big. Everything has been shrunk down for this game which is on a smaller platform. Usually a game doesn't try to draw attention to the fact that their handheld installment isn't as grand as it's console counterpart, but it works well enough for the most part. Okami had Amaterasu, Okami den has Chibiterasu, Okami had a lot of fun things to do, Okami den doesn't have that much to do, Okami had a huge country to explore, Okami den has a smaller world, Okami had a lot of innovation and good ideas, Okami den has those same ideas and almost none that are original.
Chibiterasu, fittingly named because she is just a smaller version of Ammy from the first game, is a nice twist on an established formula. Chibi animates well and has a similar personality, but it doesn't come out as much through the plot. The best thing you'll get is reactionary cuts when the game's various partners give Chibi a nickname, or dance with her. Go ahead and YouTube that if you have the time. It's adorable. The supporting cast mostly comes from the various partners you'll cart around the lands and dungeons. Okami left you with Issun for the entire game, but Okami den will rotate partners out which is refreshing. All the characters have their own personality and contribute something different to the game play and combat, but only in a minor way. The rest of the cast is a mix of old characters and people that really one have 1 scene before not being noticed for the rest of the game.
The plot suffers from similar symptoms of Okami, in that, it doesn't start up right away and drags for a while before everything gets going. Okami den's real plot doesn't start halfway through the game, the first half is spent doing miscellaneous tasks and fetching things. Even then, nothing is really ever built up or conveyed as dramatic. Okami did a good job of building up the villains and the evil that they were spreading over the land, Okami den tosses in some bad guy and, due to the lack of characters or elements effected by the evil, you really don't feel the destruction of Nippon like you did in Okami.
Speaking of the evil, combat has taken a step back. Due to the technical limitations of the DS, combat is sluggish. Chibiterasu doesn't control as well as her mom. Turning is cumbersome and attacking seems inaccurate when you're trying to combo. While this all might make the game sound hard, it really isn't. Combat doesn't get challenging until the final bosses, otherwise, its just going through the brush strokes to take care of the limited amount of types of enemies running around. Now would be a good time to mention one of Okami's selling points is, you're a sun god and use a celestial brush to fight and interact with the world. Need the sun to rise? Paint it. Need the wind to blow? Paint it. Need Namco to release Tales of Vesperia for the PS3 in the US? Tough luck.
Over the course of the game, other gods will give you their abilities to aid you on your journey. Unfortunately, Okami den cuts down on new brush moves to use. You'll see a lot of repeats from Okami and not a lot of new entries. You'll have the standard bomb, wind, sun, and slash; but those will be mixed with magnetism and that's it. It's a little disappointing that Okami was brimming over with such new ideas and Okami den doesn't offer as much or any. Magnetism isn't exactly applicable to a lot of areas and not really fun to use. There are some upgrades you can get for brush moves, which is nice, but they don't really add too much to the game, and aren't necessary.
Brush moves aren't the only thing you'll be missing in this game, side quests have been trimmed down as well. In Okami, you could feed animals, play memorization with those blocks, bark at stuff, fish, etc. Okami den gets rid of all that, barking included, and replaces it with nothing. You can collect items but that's just as fun as it sounds.
The dungeon, puzzle-solving game play of Okami was inspired from Zelda's formula but had a few new twists. Okami den's dungeons took the partner-based mechanics from Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, and were about as twisted as a straight line. It would've been nice to see new ideas for controlling a partner's movements via a stylus and your own movements with the d-pad, but it was not meant to be.
Overall, the game doesn't have any deal-breaking moments, until the final dungeon. The game not only makes you fight every single boss in the game again, Capcom tradition at this point, it makes you go through waves of enemies in a copied and pasted twice room which accumulates to about 1 more hour of game play you didn't need to experience. Then you fight a disembodied head with two hands. I don't enjoy pointing out this cop out final boss set up. I really don't. It bothers me that people keep using it when the idea barrel reaches the bottom. And I can forgive it if a game makes up for it with a plethora of ideas along the way. But Okami den doesn't justify its existence in any way.
Okami was a game that needed a console sequel to do it justice. The touch-screen controls feel right, but so would a Wii mote. Okami has proven that its formula does well on the Wii, and the Wii can support its graphic styling while not limiting the game play.
On its own merits, Okami den is just ok. It's not a terrible game by any means, but it doesn't come close to matching the greatness Okami is. It feels like Capcom wanted to capitalize on the underground, niche success Okami had, thinking it would drive sales towards Okami den when Clover Studios had closed down, making any more games feel like an impossibility. And all I can say is, it worked. I bought the game. It will always be a shame Okami never sold as much as it should have. In an industry where mediocre sells better than great, Okami was just another casualty. But it'll be less of a tragedy when Okami den doesn't sell a lot, mediocre status and all.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Tales of the Abyss: Review
Tales of the Abyss is an awkward game. On the one hand it had to follow Tales of Legendia which was a lackluster entry in the series, but it strove to be compared to Tales of Symphonia, one of the best entries in the series. So while we're quick to praise Tales of the Abyss for improving once again on the formula, it also falls short of greatest. I'll elaborate.
Graphically, both Symphonia and Legendia did the job. Graphics were colorful, smooth, well-animated; nothing insulting your eyes for the thirty hours you put into the story. Tales of the Abyss drops that ball right off the bat. You could cut glass on these graphics they're so jagged. The subtle pixelated edges that characterized by the Playstation 2 era of gaming is painfully apparent in this game all the time. Namco decided to use a different graphics engine for this game in order to accentuate the facial expressions of the characters, giving them a more anime-looking style. But what all that really amounted to was a graphical downgrade both aesthetically and technically. First off, you never get a good look at anyone's facial expressions since they change infrequently, and you rarely see them transition from emotion to emotion in one scene. Also, a lot of the characters have hair covering half their face; so the design doesn't match the intention. Technically speaking, the graphics not only don't look as good, they don't perform as good. No point in the game better represents this than the world map. It's a lag fest. The camera doesn't rotate fast enough to keep up with the character movements, and when more than 2 enemies spawn on the screen, there is a noticeable slowdown. And there will always be enemies on the screen.
Another complaint: this is one of the only RPGs were I've had a legitimate issue with depth perception. Whenever I tried to approach an enemy, shoot a fire ball to some distant object, I always was a bit off. Just thought I'd bring that up.
The character roundup of this game is strong. You get a variety of cliches that grow into unique personalities and overall well-rounded individuals. A major emphasis is placed on human error and living past the mistakes you've made in the past which draws a great deal of sympathy and understanding, and makes it much easier to want to see the plot's resolution. Except for Mieu. Filling in the role of standard, annoying animal most-likely-to-be-a-plushie is a little furball you meet in the beginning of the game that not only looks annoying, but sounds annoying. Mieu speaks in that high-pitched squeak that grinds against the eardrum the same way nails grind against a chalkboard. It wouldn't be terrible if it shut up and stayed in the back, but while not only providing nothing to the plot or game, Namco artificially forced it to be in charge of the sorcerer's ring. If you're familiar with any game in the Tales of series, you'll know that this ring will act as a puzzling solve device during some dungeons. Mieu has been put in charge of that, but doesn't actually use it; the main character still does. But every time you use it, you have to hear 'Mieeuuuu' or 'Fire!' from this pip-squeak. So be prepared for hundreds of instances of Mieu firing off one of a few select audio phrases in the middle of your puzzle-solving.
The plot is a cut above most JRPGs, but that's like saying Eminem is better than most rappers, the competition isn't exactly swarming with talent. It starts off slow, but during the first major turning point, the plot does a good job of reaching the player and making you care about what happens next. You slowly learn all the faults of the characters which makes them seem more human, and thus more easily identifiable with. The plot also blurs the lines of good and evil by throwing in a little moral ambiguity. Sure the bad guy is overall insane, but at least there's some effort to make his point of view make some twisted sense.
The battle system is really the only upgrade for the series; built off the system devised from Symphonia, improvements include being able to move freely around the battlefield and that's about it. While just a minor change, it is a firm step in the right direction. Everything else remains solid. As for the battle AI itself, that's another story. With the free-movement button, you can now dodge arte attacks and enemy melee attacks. You can, but the AI can't. Either due to a lack of L2 button for them or just a general lack of intelligence, enemies will have no problem landing hits on your stand-still partners as they look blissfully and stoically into the oncoming advances. I've seen my comrades move away from the enemy, only to stop and stand there to get hit with a magical attack over and over. Healing is also a bit too much for the AI to handle considering you have to be near death for the AI to realize some assistance is needed. This isn't a problem usually since most standard fights are easily handled by mashing the attack button until something dies. Boss fights that actually require strategy is where the AI's lack of awareness is painfully apparent.
Plot also demands a lot of backtracking through almost all the cities in the world. It wouldn't be a stretch to say you visit most cities at least five times during the course of the story, which makes the game drag on more than it should. The almost-ending does help either. The game makes it seem like it's over seven hours before it's actually over, making that seven hours seem all the longer.
Harping on the technical short-comings just a little more, I've again run into a strange glitch in the game similar to the one I found in Beyond Good and Evil. My airship was removed from the world map about 30 hours into the game. Luckily I didn't have to replay any section of the game, but how I got my airship back was just as strange as it randomly disappearing. Apparently if your airship disappears, locate your nearest port city and watch it materialize out of thin air. I'm serious, I watched as my airship dropped from thin air out of the sky, into the water and I was able to board it again. It's like the creators knew there was a glitch and decide to just patch it by making the airship always drop from space whenever the need arises. Odd method, but effective.
The usual Tales of padding is here, titles but they're useless, cooking but its unnecessary, crafting but I didn't care and skits that didn't offer details into the characters or plot as much as they did reiterate what I was going to do in-game anyways. I still get a kick of skits that stop the game play to only have the characters talk about how much of a hurry they're all in, and there's about a half dozen of them in this game.
Overall, if you're into Tales of games and haven't played this one, you're not missing much. There are better games and better Tales of games. The characters and plot allow the game to shine, but it's quickly dulled by technical issues.
Graphically, both Symphonia and Legendia did the job. Graphics were colorful, smooth, well-animated; nothing insulting your eyes for the thirty hours you put into the story. Tales of the Abyss drops that ball right off the bat. You could cut glass on these graphics they're so jagged. The subtle pixelated edges that characterized by the Playstation 2 era of gaming is painfully apparent in this game all the time. Namco decided to use a different graphics engine for this game in order to accentuate the facial expressions of the characters, giving them a more anime-looking style. But what all that really amounted to was a graphical downgrade both aesthetically and technically. First off, you never get a good look at anyone's facial expressions since they change infrequently, and you rarely see them transition from emotion to emotion in one scene. Also, a lot of the characters have hair covering half their face; so the design doesn't match the intention. Technically speaking, the graphics not only don't look as good, they don't perform as good. No point in the game better represents this than the world map. It's a lag fest. The camera doesn't rotate fast enough to keep up with the character movements, and when more than 2 enemies spawn on the screen, there is a noticeable slowdown. And there will always be enemies on the screen.
Another complaint: this is one of the only RPGs were I've had a legitimate issue with depth perception. Whenever I tried to approach an enemy, shoot a fire ball to some distant object, I always was a bit off. Just thought I'd bring that up.
The character roundup of this game is strong. You get a variety of cliches that grow into unique personalities and overall well-rounded individuals. A major emphasis is placed on human error and living past the mistakes you've made in the past which draws a great deal of sympathy and understanding, and makes it much easier to want to see the plot's resolution. Except for Mieu. Filling in the role of standard, annoying animal most-likely-to-be-a-plushie is a little furball you meet in the beginning of the game that not only looks annoying, but sounds annoying. Mieu speaks in that high-pitched squeak that grinds against the eardrum the same way nails grind against a chalkboard. It wouldn't be terrible if it shut up and stayed in the back, but while not only providing nothing to the plot or game, Namco artificially forced it to be in charge of the sorcerer's ring. If you're familiar with any game in the Tales of series, you'll know that this ring will act as a puzzling solve device during some dungeons. Mieu has been put in charge of that, but doesn't actually use it; the main character still does. But every time you use it, you have to hear 'Mieeuuuu' or 'Fire!' from this pip-squeak. So be prepared for hundreds of instances of Mieu firing off one of a few select audio phrases in the middle of your puzzle-solving.
The plot is a cut above most JRPGs, but that's like saying Eminem is better than most rappers, the competition isn't exactly swarming with talent. It starts off slow, but during the first major turning point, the plot does a good job of reaching the player and making you care about what happens next. You slowly learn all the faults of the characters which makes them seem more human, and thus more easily identifiable with. The plot also blurs the lines of good and evil by throwing in a little moral ambiguity. Sure the bad guy is overall insane, but at least there's some effort to make his point of view make some twisted sense.
The battle system is really the only upgrade for the series; built off the system devised from Symphonia, improvements include being able to move freely around the battlefield and that's about it. While just a minor change, it is a firm step in the right direction. Everything else remains solid. As for the battle AI itself, that's another story. With the free-movement button, you can now dodge arte attacks and enemy melee attacks. You can, but the AI can't. Either due to a lack of L2 button for them or just a general lack of intelligence, enemies will have no problem landing hits on your stand-still partners as they look blissfully and stoically into the oncoming advances. I've seen my comrades move away from the enemy, only to stop and stand there to get hit with a magical attack over and over. Healing is also a bit too much for the AI to handle considering you have to be near death for the AI to realize some assistance is needed. This isn't a problem usually since most standard fights are easily handled by mashing the attack button until something dies. Boss fights that actually require strategy is where the AI's lack of awareness is painfully apparent.
Plot also demands a lot of backtracking through almost all the cities in the world. It wouldn't be a stretch to say you visit most cities at least five times during the course of the story, which makes the game drag on more than it should. The almost-ending does help either. The game makes it seem like it's over seven hours before it's actually over, making that seven hours seem all the longer.
Harping on the technical short-comings just a little more, I've again run into a strange glitch in the game similar to the one I found in Beyond Good and Evil. My airship was removed from the world map about 30 hours into the game. Luckily I didn't have to replay any section of the game, but how I got my airship back was just as strange as it randomly disappearing. Apparently if your airship disappears, locate your nearest port city and watch it materialize out of thin air. I'm serious, I watched as my airship dropped from thin air out of the sky, into the water and I was able to board it again. It's like the creators knew there was a glitch and decide to just patch it by making the airship always drop from space whenever the need arises. Odd method, but effective.
The usual Tales of padding is here, titles but they're useless, cooking but its unnecessary, crafting but I didn't care and skits that didn't offer details into the characters or plot as much as they did reiterate what I was going to do in-game anyways. I still get a kick of skits that stop the game play to only have the characters talk about how much of a hurry they're all in, and there's about a half dozen of them in this game.
Overall, if you're into Tales of games and haven't played this one, you're not missing much. There are better games and better Tales of games. The characters and plot allow the game to shine, but it's quickly dulled by technical issues.
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