#mostly re: the princess' dialogue + giving the player more options

[the-shifting-long]

so much of my issue with pristine cut so far is that the devs seemed pretty committed to a vision in the baseline game (player perception and agency is important, all forms of connection with the princess are important) but are taking steps to undercut those ideas in hea, without even being seemingly aware that's what they're doing >_< like what are we doing here blacktabbygames

EXACTLY EXACTLY EXACTLY

long fucking ramble under the cut because i have thoughts lol

I was happy with the Thorn route having a version with a Kiss and that version being "better" than the other, a +2 satisfy in a world of +1s, because a.) it is Unique b.) every series of choice you have to make to get there demonstrates some level of caring for the princess c.) the princess acknowledges everything that came before it-you hurt her, then she hurts you. every action prior to it led directly to this route and you could FEEL it. d.) you have. SO MANY CHANCES. to say "okay fuck you too princess." and screw her over.

It's a fairytale ending in a game with fairytale theming. It's an ending you have to fight for. It's one where you're constantly given chances to deviate-in chapter 1, to see Damsel or Beast instead, in chapter 2, to do so many things! that would end in one or both of you dying or locked behind the door, and then in chapter 3 itself, to abandon her or take the chance to stab her

If player perception and agency is important, then where is my agency. Where is my ability to thrash against my bonds, resist eating dinner, threaten and snarl and scream at the princess or the narrator or the shadow. In every other route where that was taken away from you (Tower, Moment of Clarity) those options were there, but grayed out, or they weren't there, but the narration made it clear what you'd done beforehand had locked you into this path.

If my agency matters, where are the consequences for my actions? Why are they all being pinned on a shadow that the princess, the game, and the narrator do not acknowledge as me/a part of me, except, perhaps, in the vaguest of terms? Why can we pin all of these consequences on some external factor? Why does the princess not acknowledge our actions in a previous route, just talk about how "we didn't really know one another, did we." The feelings associated with them, and yet, not even a scratch of those feelings-not the horror of us ripping our chest open, not whatever understanding she managed to reach when she was going for our heart, not the things she experienced as the chapter 1 damsel where, as revealed in her ending poem, she avoided stabbing our heart directly because she didn't want us to leave, and hated killing us "Do I miss your heart because I can't stand to see it go?"

We trap her here, and get to take her out of there with none of that same redemptive aspect of Thorn where we struggle to earn her trust back. I roleplayed as a jackass to get to her route. I tried to keep doing that. I clicked the most jackass options and still got to leave with her-in part because there weren't jackass options in the first place, and the roleplay I was enjoying fell through. She seemed scared, traumatized, exhausted, and I could blame it on myself instead of the shadow-but the game doesn't let her be scared of me. Whatever happened in the previous chapters only mattered as a feeling.

It wasn't like that in other routes. Cage acknowledges the repeated bringing of the blade, the repeated failures to cut herself out. Wraith acknowledges if you tried to kill her twice as the spectre or ended up killing a nightmare. Fury acknowledges the specific ways you ended up failing your Adversary. Eye of the Needle acknowledges that the two of you USED to have a good fight, and you disappointed her with the last one. Every action, from chapter 1 to chapter 2, felt like it had an impact on the resultant chapter 3. They didn't have to state it explicitly for that to be felt. It didn't have to be stated explicitly for it to felt in HEA, either...but that doesn't change that it's not.

I enjoy it as a concept. I see where the devs were going with this tired princess, unwilling to even fight back if you kill her. I see where they were going with the Narrator seeing a version of his happy reality and hating it. I see where they were going with Smitten being how he was-how he just wants to make her happy! But the end result makes it too easy to unfairly demonize him for your actions and separate the two of you, from the ominous framing of him to the slasher-smile on some of his sprites to the voice delivery prior to entering the route where he sounds less like the Smitten we know and more blatantly evil-and you see it in the fanbase! People HATE Smitten for what they themselves did!

To steal a meme from reddit:

It's a combination of how the Smitten is framed by the art/narrative, a lack of player choices once you're in the route that aren't Vague Niceness or Explicit Niceness, and the princess' inability to acknowledge the horrible things you did even as she's experiencing the Horrors as a result that all collide into some horrible implications; while any one of those things could be a justifiable artistic decision on their own, they add up into something less than a sum of their parts.

There's valid narrative reasons for the Smitten to be separate from us/an ominous shadow forcing us both into a nice routine. It's great symbolism, even. There's valid narrative reasons for us to be unable to muster up any cruelness to say to her. There's valid narrative reasons for the Princess to be as blindly loving as she is even after anything. That doesn't change that they don't mesh together well, and that at least one, if not ALL of those darlings, should've been killed in the first draft in order to better get across the themes of the route AND the themes of Slay the Princess as a whole.

The rest of the game is so GOOD about there being consequences and about those consequences being yours. I don't understand what the writing process for HEA could've possibly been for it to stumble this hard and for the devs to still consider it a masterpiece. That's honestly the most frustrating part of it all for me-in failing to see the flaws of this route or the ways it can fail its audience, they fail to recognize the implications of it, and that concerns me and makes me a LOT less confident about the quality of their future work. I had a lot of faith in them as developers prior to this. I'm still looking forward to future Scarlet Hollow episodes.

My standards are a LOT lower than they were, and it's in part due to their insistence that HEA is the best route in the game, actually.

[rjfaqs]

Kingdom Hearts is the Perfect Star Wars Game.

Hey, Guys, it’s R.J. “Smooth” and I don’t have a slogan but let’s get into it.

Is it me or was 2012 one hell of a year?

We had some of our highest highs and our weirdest lows. For instance, our former President Barrack Obama got re-elected, Marvel’s “Avengers”, Sony’s “Amazing Spider-Man” and DC’s “The Dark Knight Rises” were released in cinemas, and the Mayan Calendar ended and, unfortunately, I graduated from high school as a result of its incompetence and false promises.

What they all share in common, I found, was one thing: change.

Marvel’s Avengers kicked off, essentially, an entire film studio and franchise, something that was nearly unheard of before then. Amazing Spider-Man changed a way we looked at Peter Parker’s story and, arguably, Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy changed superhero movies forever. Each one manifested and made a big change in their respective fields, but one thing in particular had the biggest change of all:

Disney acquiring the rights to Star Wars.

This piece of news was met with a great amount of reactions ranging from: being upset, thrilled, to downright confused. For reference, Star Wars was on a collective hiatus at this point. Sure, we had spin-offs such as an entire series: Star Wars: The Clone Wars [two of them, in fact] and an ongoing franchise of books to carry on when the films ended and even some stellar video games like Star Wars the Force Unleashed, but nothing ever truly compared to the films.

The antsy feeling of anticipation you got when the trailers ended and the lights dimmed, the moment your heart was allowed to resume beating when you saw “Star Wars” and its theme started to play, the excitement you got when you could finally read fast enough to read the whole scroll. . .okay, that last one was me, but you see my point. And, once Disney got the ball rolling with films, video games were sure to follow: enter Star Wars: Battlefront (2015).

Was it met with the [mostly] positive reception that The Force Awakens was? No. Well, not really.

Star Wars: Battlefront had everything a Star Wars fan could want when it came to aesthetics. Developers EA DICE have always been pretty spectacular when it came to the visuals in their games with Battlefield being their star example, but, if you were looking for much else after that, you were sorely let down. The lack of content sent players into a fit, and rightfully so. So, what did they do when it came time for the sequel, Star Wars: Battlefront 2? . . .well, let’s just say the Force was not strong with that one and, considering Disney’s reluctance to let EA loose, it seems like we’re not in for anything different any time soon.

But what if the answer isn’t in the future, but what’s in the past?

KINGDOM HEARTS.

Kingdom Hearts, created by Tetsuya Nomura, is an action Japanese Roleplaying Game (JRPG) that crosses over Disney and Final Fantasy. It’s, admittedly, an unholy duality that mixes as surprisingly well as mustard and ranch dressing. (Don’t @ Me!) On top of that, it lends itself surprisingly in alignment with Star Wars. Hell, some of its games and characters are almost eerily the same.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a young, dough-eyed protagonist is stuck at home but has dreams of leaving home and going on grand adventures.

A great terror strikes his home -- 

and he’s bequeathed a magical weapon (one that, it turns out, comes from a long line of others that work and look just like it) and shortly after starts his adventure. 

Going from setting to setting, he makes new comrades who become lifelong friends -- 

one [in particular] a rugged, charming, bad boy type and the other a princess with a fact that is never touched on again. (No, seriously, not ever.) 

As their adventure goes on, the hero discovers entire planets are taken out by ones on the Dark Side. 

Later, the hero is subjected to abandonment by said friends but continues on anyway. 

His allies see the error of their ways and join back on his side 

and, in the end, and with the help of a wiser master, the day is saved. 

Hell, you even find out that the big bad guy isn’t who you thought the big bad guy was,

But merely an asset the one really in charge!

See it now? The parallels are UNCANNY!

Everything from the bright colors to the iconic soundtrack to even the (at times) corny dialogue — Kingdom Hearts has Star Wars almost down to a science. The only difference is you get to be part of the adventure in a newer, more interactive way rather than just watching it. (Although, that is definitely an option considering how many “theatre mode”s there are.)

Going on a long, fantasy adventure with Sora throughout the worlds as he grows as the sole (at-the-time) keyblade master gives you a sense of pride and responsibility to save the worlds against the greater threat. You feel stronger as you go from world to world and, like Sora, you’re given this boost of confidence that any rightful hero should. Some dialogue is a bit dated and, admittedly, so are the controls, but, hey, so is the original Star Wars, in spite of (both of their) recent remasters. Kingdom Hearts has filled countless players with joy, sadness and story that they’ve held onto over almost two decades, not unlike the Star Wars franchise. With unforgettable characters and a story that refuses to let up, it’s no wonder that, even after all these years, we still keep a spot for both of them in our hearts.

But I don’t know, tho. . .

(credit for certain screenshots @ RabidRetrospectGames on Youtube)

[burnouts3s3]

Anthem, a review

(Disclaimer: The following is a non-profit unprofessional blog post written by an unprofessional blog poster. All purported facts and statement are little more than the subjective, biased opinion of said blog poster. In other words, don’t take anything I say too seriously.) Just the facts 'Cause you're in a Hurry! Publisher: Electronic Arts Developer: Bioware Platform Required: Origin Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP): 59.99 USD How much I paid: 14.99 USD for Origin Premiere Access, a subscription service for Electronic Arts Rated: Not Rated as of the writing of this review. Can I play offline: No. Anthem requires a constant online connection to play. Controller Support: Yes. It was compatible with my Rock-Candy Xbox 360 controller.  Keyboard and Mouse controls are also available. How long I played: 16 Hours to complete the main story mode on Easy mode while watching the (skippable) cutscenes. Microtransactions: An in-game Store to purchase skins, individual paint jobs or emotes for various Javelins, suits in the game. Purchases can cost up to 20 USD. What I played on: My PC. Performance Issues: I would use many words to describe Anthem, but "optimized" is not one of them. With V-Sync turned on, the Framerate dips wildly between 30-60 FPS. Several instances of clipping and pop-in textures. 3 Game crashes requiring me to restart the game. One instance of the game not loading the forge yet and me walking into the bottom pit while the forge spawed up ahead and I got stuck so I had to reset the game. But hey, the facial animations are pretty passable this time around. My Personal Biases: I am a Biodrone/Bioware apologist. I’ve played every Bioware game since Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. However, I’ve been having doubts on the company since the buggy release of Mass Effect: Andromeda. My Verdict: Less like a complete game and more like a prologue to hook early adopters in, Anthem feels like the first time in a long time that doesn't have Bioware's roleplaying there. With no romance options, very few conversations with side characters with limited choices and a ho-hum story, Anthem feels sorely lacking in several areas. Wait until Bioware puts in more content and a price cut before picking this one up. Anthem, a review

And so it's finally here. After years of Development, Bioware finally releases its new IP: Anthem. After the critical and financial flop that was Mass Effect: Andromeda from even hardcore Bioware fans, will the developer be able to get back into the good graces of their fanbase? Let's find out. This is a review of "Anthem". You are a Freelancer. Riding around in your mechanical jet suit, a Javelin, you adventure outside the world collecting artifacts of, what else, the remains of an ancient and mysterious race of creators that shaped the world through the Anthem. Alongside your friends, a veteran Javelin pilot Haluk and a Cypher (psychics who can listen and understand the Anthem), Faye, you adventure into the Heart of Rage, a dangerous location where even the most hardened of veterans fall. But when the expedition goes horribly wrong and most of the other Freelancers have been killed, you pull Haluk out of the Heart of Rage and retreat to Fort Tarsis. While I can safely say that Anthem isn't nearly the disaster Mass Effect: Andromeda was, it leaves a lot to be desired. It's less of a full game than it is a prologue to something else. Then again, in the age of the ongoing dumpster fire that is Fallout 76, I suppose a less than optimized game isn't nearly as terrible as a continuing PR disaster. Two years pass and you are finding any sort of work given to you. People have begun to lose faith in Freelancers and you and your new friend, Owen, try to make ends meet. However, Tassyn, an informant from the Capital, comes with you with a job offer. However, as you continue your adventure, you meet up with the enemy faction, the Dominion (those who believe they can control the Anthem and reshape the world) as well as its bloodthirsty leader, Monitor. In order to defeat the Monitor, you'll have to reunite with your estranged friends, Haluk and Faye, improve your Javelin, pass trials and re-enter the Heart of Rage. Can you finish the mission you ran away from two years ago? Anthem is a third-person shooter in which you complete quests to earn gear. As you level up and do more difficult missions, you'll receive better gear. This is where Anthem shines: the level of customizing your Javeline is immense and there's a lot of room for originality. There are 4 classes of Javelins: the Ranger, an all-around, versatile mech, the Interceptor, a light mech focusing on Melee attacks, the Storm, a mage type class that can fire elemental attacks and the Colossus, the tank class capable of soaking up damage. While each of the 4 Javelins can equip any weapon, specific Javelins are limited to certain parts. You'll gather and accumliate parts and salvage the parts to get components. You can use components to craft new parts ranging from Common to Uncommon to Rare to Legendary. If you earn a blueprint, you can craft some Legendary gear. Earning items can be done by playing story missions, doing side-quests, participating in Strongholds (this game's version of Dungeons) or going into Freeplay, an open world element in which you fly around the vast world and look for 'World Events' random missions that have specific objectives and reward a treasure chest full of loot. Flying around in the mech is a highlight. Being able to soar through the air and water while watching for overheating is probably the best we'll get to an Iron Man experience. Combat and mission objectives aren't quite as compelling. It's mostly doing the same thing over and over again: defeat waves of enemies, collect echos or fragments, wait until the Signal is decrypted, etc. And while the Javelins have different playstyles, abilities and Ultimate attacks, it does little to change defeating wave after wave of enemies for the umpteeth time. While Customizing your Javelin is vast, customizing your player avatar is sorely lacking. There's no character creator as the game only gives you preset faces to pick from. Worst yet, the majority of the game while in Fort Tarsis is set in first-person, meaning you'll almost never see your character for the majority of the game. The lack of roleplaying bleeds out into Fort Tarsis. Frankly, compared to the vast world to explore in Anthem, Fort Tarsis is claustrophobic. It makes Dragon Age 2's Kirkwall seem big by comparison. There's very little to explore and not helping matters is the snail's pace you're forced to walk while traveling around it. For Tarsis is filled up with NPC's in which you can have conversations. To advance certain conversations, you'll either have to do missions or enter freeplay. Unfortunately, your dialogue options are VERY limited. The infamous Bioware Dialogue Wheel is nowhere to be found and you'll be left with two choices to respond. Not helping matters is that most of these conversations go nowhere and do very little to define your character. (Though there are some exceptions. For example, I liked listening to Zoe talk about her son and why her motherly instincts lead her to take extra care of Javelins or helping an old woman who confuses you for her dead child). While the results may differ depending on what choices you choose, all the major stuff is being done off-screen. It's one thing to have a veteran Javelin pilot reminisce about the old days but when other characters are having adventures and bringing you up to speed on taking your advice, you can't help but feel a disconnect. The main story doesn't really help either. You don't even get to pick dialogue choices at all and you watch as your Player Character does all the acting. It truly feels like the first time the game is on-rails and you're not voicing any input at all on how to react. Worst yet, certain points in the main questline FORCES you to do tedious grinding to advance. When Faye asks you to do trials, they can only be accomplished by doing in-game achievements (i.e. Kill X enemies with a Melee Attack or Revive X players). It feels needlessly tedious and only bogs the game down. This is (and I'm speculating here) only there to extend the playtime so that gamers who payed for the 10 hour trial do not blitz through the main storyline.

After that, you need to craft the Dawn Sheild and must help either Matthias, an Archanist who might be seeing triple or Sentinel Dax, a princess turned guard who's recklessness might get you killed, in order to do so. Worst yet, even after helping one of them, the game insists you help the other one to lower the crafting cost of the shield. The main questline is short and full of cliches. Not helping matters is that the Monitor is a completely generic big bad with no real personality and idiotic reasons for wanting to access the Anthem. I know Bioware is hardly the arbiter of original characters, but the Monitor is woefully lacking after the specific threats that were Mass Effect's Saren and Dragon Age's Loghain. And after it's done, the game 'teases' you with an after-credits scene that only exists so that Bioware can state "Don't worry; we have more content coming soon". Even after you complete the story and unlock the two other Strongholds, there's a woeful lack of content. You can repeat missions and do quests on higher difficulty levels to gain better gear, but it quickly becomes repetitive. Who is the audience for this game? In a world where Warframe is free to play, Borderlands 2 has a healthy player population and Destiny 2 has had its price cut, Anthem feels like a latecomer to the genre. But, even loyal Bioware fans (i.e. the people who bought Mass Effect: Andromeda on the first day and still defend said purchase), aren’t feeling this game. In fact, one of the Youtube creators I follow quit the game after he received a bug in which after unlocking his second Javelin, he was unable to access the account.

Why would Bioware change its formula now? And it's not as if Anthem is a priority for Electronic Arts, either. With Apex Legends continuing to dominate Twitch ratings and Playerbase, Anthem will probably be pushed to the sidelines. The game requires constant online connection and has an in-game store. Fortunately, said microtransactions are purely cosmetic and do not feature loot boxes plaguing the industry. And while it isn't as rediculous and allows you, the player, to buy the items with in-game currency, it's still a bad precedent. But I could even forgive the game as a service model as long as I got to roleplay. For example, (and I’m aware this is a very subjective opinion that is not shared by other people), I really like Star Wars: The Old Republic. Even though many gamers criticized the game of being a World of Warcraft rip-off (and rightly so, I might add), there was a sense of roleplaying and seeing my character on screen. Plus, it was cool seeing how different the class stories differed from one another. I could tell you how my Twi'lek smuggler who romanced Akaavi differed from my Pureblood Sith Inquistor who romanced Ashara. If you asked me what differentiated my Male Javelin Pilot from my Female one, I couldn't possibly tell you. (I suspect that the game will inevitably follow the footsteps of Star Wars: The Old Republic, go free to play when the playerbase dwindles while walling off things such as Strongholds for subscribers). And it's very telling how developers and animators were pulled from Mass Effect: Andromeda to help work on Anthem. CAVEAT: As a developer, Bioware has always put things like inclusion and diversity first and foremost, even at the cost of things such as quality assurance or facial animations. "Strong Alone, Stronger Together," says Haluk. And for a lot of consumers, myself included, they feel conflicted on criticizing something they view as a positive force for the games industry. But whatever the consumer is, whomever they love, whatever the color of their skin or what they identify themselves as, Electronic Arts is pulling out scummy tactics to milk them out of their money. There’s still an ongoing debate of where things like representation, inclusion, exclusion, diversity and egalitarianism have in the industry. But wherever you find yourself on the culture war, the one thing we can agree on is that the last thing required are for giant publishers co-opting those social issues in order to scam its customers out of their money. Verdict: Wait for a sale or Rental.

[ivyplays]

I started playing Fire Emblem Heroes (Android). Here are my thoughts about the game after several days of playing. I’ll probably be comparing this game to other games that I like.

I have mixed feelings about the game. I think it’s good in a lot of ways, but it’s bad where it counts.

Long text ahead.

Art:

+++ There is A LOT of character art. A FE fan will probably like it. Everything is hi-res and clean. I Don’t think that the characters themselves are that superb (Terra Battle has far more interesting and detailed heroes - with a story behind each picture and costume), but the quality of art in FEH is very good. Every character is portrayed in several positions and has an animated chibi-version. Everything screams “big budget”.

--- Characters from older FE games are redrawn (Navarre, darling, who dared to make you into a bishonen?). Some characters from newer versions are redrawn, too, for some reason (Chrom? Who’s been starving you for half a year?) And everything was made by different artists - and it’s very visible. Sometimes even the characters from the same game are drawn in different styles. It would make sense if the art would differ from game to game, but no, it’s just because they let the chosen artists grab the characters that they like, and then gave away all the rest to freelancers, it seems.

I don’t think any of these look good together - it’s an awful clash of styles (even if some of them are really good by themselves):

I personally like Anna and Gunter, though I don’t think his portrait is any different from Jagen - this could be the same character, yet these are two different men:

Story:

--- The story is bad. After several chapters, it gives nothing. You just save FE heroes from a summoning contract with an evil princess that invades the neighboring country every other morning, and then returns to drinking tea. Only the fan service: Oh! The evil princess Whatshername summoned a hero from the third part of Fire Emblem series! Or was it the second part? Whatever. He doesn’t even want to fight for her, poor thing. Let’s kick his ass to set him free. Then he can fight for us. Does he want to fight for us? Of course he wants - we are good. And nobody asks him. And the funny part? He can already be fighting for us, because you’ve already summoned him! So let it be a two-faced bastard versus himself, only mirrored, because the enemy units are mirrored.

--- The dialogues are bad. I always treat the story and the dialogues separately. They can be very different issues. Like the Final Fantasy X story is superb, but every word that Tidus says at the beginning of the game is idiotic. Or like The Last Story has a generic plot, but very good side interactions between characters. It’s nice if both are good, but I guess we can’t have everything at the same time. Sometimes we can’t have either. Like in Fire Emblem Heroes. Every line is generic fan service. Mostly everybody is cheerful and stupid. Every character is determined by only one trait and acts accordingly. Someone likes the opposite gender - that’s the only thing you’ll hear from them. Someone is a servant - and that’s all they’ll be talking about.

Gameplay:

+++ Battles require some sort of strategical thinking. There are walls and bridges, and even your allies can obstruct your movement. It’s good that they incorporated these FE features and didn’t make the game just into a generic CCG. They even made some special missions where you can’t let your characters die (or it’s  Mission Over).

--- The battles are slow and require a lot of player involvement. It helps that there is an option of turning the battle animations off. There is also an auto-battle function, but I’m wary of it.

--- The battlefields are quite small. There is also not so many of them. That makes the gameplay very repetitive.

Character customization:

(By that I mean leveling and upgrading, in this case.)

--- Upgrading units is a mess. It’s confusing, you can’t get enough items for a 4->5star upgrade, they should at least sell those items, right now it makes no sense at all. Leveling up new units is boring and repetitive.

--- FEH features the most awful system from the FE series - the Random Stats Increase On Level-Up. It’s a crime against humanity. A unit can end up gaining next to nothing with a new level (just some SP, or maybe just 1 stat). It can happen several times in a row. It can happen even to a 4-star character. If that happens you should kill him off before the battle ends - that way he will lose his progress for this battle and can have a new try at decent level-up next time. Units Losing Exp If Not Surviving The Battle is also a terrible feature, but it can sometimes counter an even worse feature, so it’s some kind of hellish win. Chose your favorite terrible feature and cherish it.

--- And I’ve already written a separate post about the summoning, which is cruel and unrewarding. I want to add to it, that even after several quite paid summons you can end up with no healers and with a bunch of 3-star units... so that would be a good time to drop the game and do something useful with your life. I’m good, I’ve got a healer.

General:

+++ In the first couple of days there are things to do in FEH and stamina limitations are not severe. If you are manually leveling your new characters from lvl1, then you can also play for a long time with no stamina refill.

--- A day or two into a game stamina just evaporates, and there is nothing to do except trying to level up new characters, which is boring at this point.

--- There is not enough content in the game. It looks like a demo with too much character art.

=== This is a game for fans. I know the characters of Shadow Dragon, Awakening, and several from Fates, I’m also aware of existence of some other heroes of FE. If I hadn’t known them, I don’t think the game will have any appeal for me. The character art is high-quality (I mean, hi-res, varied, clean), but the characters themselves are quite boring, especially if you don’t know them. I played enough Fantasica back in the day to know how absolutely random characters can be very appealing. And I already mentioned Terra Battle’s character art: details, personalities, character traits visible only from the pose and clothing. I don’t mean you can tell if a character is a cleric by his robe and a staff, I mean how you can feel if they have a sense of humor, do they think of themselves as strong or beautiful, will they listen to your favorite song, and so on. Frankly speaking, FEH character art, while being good, is something like a character set from RPG Maker software. And I’m not a hater, pardon me, I’m even biased towards fair 1/3 of FEH’s faces. But they are still plain, NPC-like, placeholders.

Conclusion:

I’m glad I decided not to post my opinion about the game after the first two days of playing. Then I thought I could play it for a long time. It gave me a nice feeling of enjoying novelty. On the third day I found out that the game no longer gives me anything new. It’s very shallow. I’ve been playing about a week now and I’m forcing myself to do so.

They have to add content to the game. I don’t mean new characters, I mean something that would add some meaning to it, some sense of why is it a game, and not a Fire Emblem character gallery. It’s sad how it looks so tasty, and then just feels like plain water.

I’m trying to be not very harsh here. To be honest, I’m more troubled by the bad points than I’m pleased with good ones. It also adds to my disappointment, that YouTube is filled with videos of people spending thousands of dollars on this game and not even getting the heroes that they want. This is fundamentally wrong.

[ciathyzareposts]

Planet’s Ege: Won! (with Summary and Rating)

Executive: “See, the game is called Planet’s Edge, so many the box should have this guy standing on . . . you know . . . the edge of the planet.” Artist: “Aren’t we all by definition standing on the edge of the planet?” Executive: “That’s not what I meant!” Artist: “Okay, okay, I’ll figure it out.”

          Planet’s Edge

United States

New World Computing (developer and publisher)

Released 1991 for DOS, 1993 for FM Towns and PC-98

Date Started: 5 March 2020 Date Finished: 1 May 2020 Total Hours: 55 Difficulty: Hard (4/5) Final Rating: (to come later) Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)      

I did not like Planet’s Edge. I knew by the fifth hour that I didn’t like it, and yet for some reason I forced myself to finish it, blasting through the rest of the scenarios in 20 hours spread over four days. Several times during those 20 hours–usually after my ship had been blown up for the fifth time by the same orbital defense platform–I resolved to quit permanently, but in the end I kept trying again. I have to confess that I used the cluebook more than a few times in the last 10 hours, and I took a lot of shortcuts. If I landed on a planet and some local leader said, “I have a [Piece of the Centauri Device that I needed]! I’ll give it to you if you’ll just–,” I didn’t let him finish the sentence before I decorated the room with his innards and looted the item off his body. Even then, the game took forever.           

The device is almost together.

         I’m going to do my best to summarize the game below, but one of its major weaknesses is that having finished it, I still don’t really know what happened to Earth. The best I can piece together is that the Ominar were doing some kind of experiment and it was interrupted by their enemies, the Ipremi, causing it to go awry. That’s mostly from random NPCs who otherwise weren’t important to the plot. The game is mostly uninterested in its core mystery. Everything that happens is intensely local, and in the end I have no idea how many different races I encountered or really how they inter-relate. Because you never get portraits, only fuzzy icons, for the aliens you meet in the scenarios, I don’t know how to reconcile them with the aliens I kept meeting in space. For instance, I don’t know if the blue aliens who gave me so much trouble, or the orcish aliens, or the aliens whose portrait only shows one eye from behind a visor, ever show up on the various planets.          

Is this species any of the aliens I met on the worlds’ surfaces?

           In broad strokes, the game seems like Starflight or Star Control II, but it fails in not being much like those two titles. There’s no joy in exploration because there’s never anything to find that isn’t part of some interconnected plot. There are no meaningful dialogues with NPCs in which you figure out the character and motivations of the various races. There’s no mining, no trading (not in the sense of the other two games, anyway), no economy. And while it’s nice that there are several different paths through most of the scenarios, there are no ramifications to your choices. Kill the president of the Algieban Sector, you not only never hear about it again in other sectors, you don’t even hear about it in the next room. 

The core gameplay mechanic is to rush around the galaxy looking for various keys, passes, badges, and other artifacts, killing the aliens guarding them, and then using them in the right places on other planets. A ton of backtracking is required. If there’s a door on Rigel Three that requires a key to open, you can be sure that the key won’t helpfully be on Rigel Three but rather Sirius Seven. And it will be behind a door that requires a pass from Rigel Three. This means you have a lot of plot points to keep track of, particularly because it’s never clear where to start the interrelated episodes in each sector.             

Will someone please tell me who these guys were?

         You’ll recall that the game’s central plot involves the mysterious disappearance of the Earth. Since its gravity well doesn’t also disappear, it seems that the Earth hasn’t been so much destroyed as somehow occluded. At the same time, an alien ship crash-lands on the Moon, and scientists on the Moonbase determine that a device on the cash, which they name the “Centauri Device,” was responsible for the vanishing of the planet. They identify eight crucial pieces that they need to get it working and reverse the effects. Studies of the craft allow humanity’s remnants to make enormous technical leaps (including faster-than-light travel), and soon the player and his party of four are commissioned to head off into the galaxy and beg, steal, borrow, or barter for the eight parts, of which there is one in each of eight sectors. They also need to find six sets of ships’ plans and four sets of technical plans to improve their ship and personal items.        As I said, the game is less concerned with the overall plot than the individual troubles of each Sector. Each one has four or five inter-related stories. You largely find them by searching random systems until you find one, and then following clues from that one to the others. (Or, you could be a lunatic and visit every system and every planet and record where they occur before visiting them.) But the game really starts at Alpha Centauri, where you find an observation base set up by the aliens performing the Centauri Device experiment. It was later attacked by another species. A brief summary each sector:               

In Sector Algieba, the saurian President Ishtao has been re-elected and is hosting his second inauguration ceremony. The event has been infiltrated by a group of terrorists called the Geal A’nai who you can either work with or foil. (Or you can just kill everyone.) But to get into the palace, you first have to solve some problems on a couple of Ishtao’s constituency worlds until the leader of one of them passes you an invitation. The Geal A’nai are trying to influence events on those worlds, too. I thought they would ultimately become a presence throughout the game, but they’re only in that sector.

Sector Alhena is in the midst of a civil war between the Scroe and the Evian, while a third race called the Dhoven try to mediate. Most of the episodes take place on war-torn planets in which the party has to fight both Scroe (look like Bossk) and Evian parties while obtaining help from Dhoven NPCs (white, gangly things). However, if you know what you’re doing (because you read the cluebook), you can bypass three of the scenarios, go directly the peace conference on Hyades Prime, and kill everyone to get the needed device part, the Krupp Shields. This option is quite evil because you end up literally massacring a group of envoys sitting around a peace table. One wonders if that ends the peace process or causes the Scroe and Evian to unify in their hatred of Earth.

       “Good luck with that whole peace thing!”

        Sector Alnasl is home to the Ominar, a species that looks like it has a bulbous red head. They reproduce by cloning and the uploading “standardware” into the brains of their clones, but this standardware has lately been sabotaged by a race or faction called the Ipremi Secundus (they look pretty much just like the Ominar), leading to rampant insanity among Ominar citizens. You have to help (or just kill) the Ominar to get the various items needed to invade the Secundus Base (easily the hardest episode in the game) and find the needed Algo Cam.

              Fighting these enemy robot tanks on Secundus Base was the hardest melee part of the game. I must have reloaded 25 times.

             Sector Ankaq has a few species, but the most relevant is the antlike Ethnys, whose queen rules from Ankaq Prime. You have to find four spheres among the other planets and bring them back to Ankaq Prime to, I don’t know, bring the species back into harmony again and make it possible for the queen to continue laying eggs. These spheres are scattered about the other episodes, including one where the entire party dons wetsuits and visits a triton-like species called the Tschi Tai and another where they have to fight through an urban wasteland called Shadowside. The grateful queen gives you the Harmonic Resonator.

              Placing the orbs around the hive.

           Sector Caroli is the one with a plant-based species called the Eldarin. They hibernate for long periods, awaken ravenously hungry, and must eat immediately. But their food distribution system has lately been disrupted, so you’ve got to run around fixing tractors and stuff to save them from their own incompetence. The Ominar have been supplying the Eldarin with parts, and the scenarios end on an Ominar base, where you find the Gravitic Compressor.

Sector Izar is the most confusing. The way I understand it is that the natives are actually human. You visit one planet, Arcturas III, which feels like a fantasy RPG complete with archers, kings, princesses, and a castle. But the sector has been invaded by the Ipremi Secundus whose leader, known as The Concierge, has built a supercomputer called OMEGA to oversee the sector. OMEGA for some reason has ordered the kidnapping of the more primitive aliens from their planets, and one of those races, the Mizarans, are currently rebelling. You have to collect a bunch of Hataphas Gems from various worlds before finding your way through an invisible maze on Izar II to confront the Concierge and get the N.I.C.T.U. device from him.

               Talking with the Concierge. I’m pretty sure he’s just guessing about the “some helpful, some grievously harmful” part.

          Sector Kornephoros is an anarchic part of space with a motley group of settlers, scavengers, and pirates. All the planets are being threatened by a species called the Cin Sae, which look like the aliens from Aliens. The central episode is an auction on Kochab II, where the auctioneer has the Mass Converter. You can run around the entire sector solving issues for various people and accumulate the things the auctioneer wants for the part, or you can just walk up, shoot him, take it, and beam away.

              “Sure, but not in the way that you had in mind.”

         Sector Zaurak is another one that I barely explored. It is inhabited by a humanoid species known as Ranans. The sector has lately been threatened by the appearance of “white hole” (the opposite of a black hole, it spews matter outward instead of sucking it in). On Rana Prime, a leader called the Giate offers you the needed K-Beam if you’ll run around the sector placing “grav buoys” to counter-act the white hole.

          Unfortunately, the Giate made the mistake of telling me he had the K-Beam on his person.

            As far as the main plot goes, the best I can figure is that the Ominar were the ones operating the Centauri Device. It was supposed to give them “transuniversal travel” capabilities, but the Ipremi invaded their outpost on Alpha Centauri, interrupted the experiment, and caused it to go awry. How this ended up affecting the Earth is not technically explained.           

A random NPC imparts more information than anyone else in the game.

          There’s a lot of ground combat across these scenarios, and the annoying thing is that the team never really gets any better because there’s no character development. You can keep re-cloning team members, but even at skill scores of 100 with their respective weapons, characters seem to miss an awful lot. Part of the problem is that you’re always having to swap equipment in and out depending on the enemy. If you’re facing an enemy wearing ceramic armor, you don’t want to be shooting him with laser weapons because ceramic protects against those. So you switch to projectile weapons but have to remember to switch back if you meet someone wearing composite armor. Meanwhile, you’re constantly changing your own armor based on the weapons the enemy is using.

It’s not hard to figure out what armor is the best because it has a hit point value, but it’s not always clear with weapons (until you look at the clue book, that is). And–oh, my god–looking at that table, I just realized that the “tac nuke rifle” is listed as a light weapon not a heavy one. That might explain why I had so much trouble, since I gave those rifles to my heavy weapon characters. Aaargh. Does that sound like a light weapon?! Anyway, the only good news is that weapons of the same type use a common ammo stock so you don’t have to carry 20 different types of ammo around.     Other aspects of melee combat annoyed me. Enemies around corners always seemed to be able to shoot the party even when I couldn’t hit them. They seemed to have a lot more success from farther away, often off-screen, than I did. And I was always getting into combats in the most uncomfortable physical environments, like narrow doorway openings where I had to have my lead characters advance under fire if I wanted my rear characters to be able to participate. I suppose there are other times and other games in which I would have regarded such scenarios as “tactical,” but I’ll tell you what: knowing that I’m not getting any skill or experience from combat really reduces my desire to fight it.            

Occasionally, it works out for you. Here, I can use my grenade launcher (which does damage to a 4 x 4 area) to damage the immobile robots, while they can’t even see me.

           Space combat also remained quite hard for me, particularly in the Alnasl and Izar sectors, where just about every planet had an orbiting defense platform and a few ships. I had to use the cluebook to tell me where to find ship’s plans so I could upgrade as quickly as possible, and even then I had problems. One thing that makes life a little easier is that your ship is fully repaired when you disengage from combat, so you can dive in, destroy one enemy, and escape, then repeat for the next one until all are dead. But even that’s pretty tough. Sometimes, you can’t escape because your enemies destroy your engines. And a lot of other times, two or three enemy ships is enough to destroy yours before you can even get their shields down.          

It’s never fun getting to a planet and seeing this.

          The game offers several weapon types for ships. The success of beam, bolts, and projectile weapons is based on character skill. You can also mount missiles which just home in on targets and don’t depend on skill. Either way, I assumed for a while that the key to success was a variety of weapon types. The last two class of ships allow you to max out your 10 weapons slots, so I’d do a couple of rack guns, a couple of megamissile mounts, a couple of quark lasers, and so forth. There are supposedly also a lot of tactics associated with whether you mount the weapons to face forward, left, right, or on a 360-degree turret, the latter taking four times the space as the former three.    When variety seemed to fail me, I spent a lot of time recloning my lead character to favor different weapons. In the end, I found that nothing served me better than loading up all 10 weapon mounts with quark lasers, putting as many on turrets as possible but facing the rest forward. That simple bit of advice early in the game would have saved me a lot of reloading.          

My final ship configuration.

         When you have all eight pieces of the Centauri Device assembled, the endgame commences. An animated series of screens shows Earth scientists re-activating the device, shooting some kind of electromagnetic wad towards the vanished Earth. It strikes, and the Earth dissolves back into view.          

A bunch of scientist guys prepare to use the device.

There it goes!

This is a very accurate globe.

          A ship heads from Moonbase to Earth, where there’s some kind of big award ceremony. As each crewmember walks up and salutes a man who is presumably the Earth president, a bit of text tells you his or her fate. William Dean ends up marrying Katya Mershova, who later dies on duty. Osai Tsakafuchi becomes the World Health Administrator, and Nelson Ngatadatu simply retires.                

Given that he’s a clone, that’s probably a euphemism.

           After the characters get their honors, key personnel in the development of the game also walk up and salute the president.            

Hyman’s resignation letter. He was at ORIGIN the following year.

             Finally, we get some scrolling text:              

And so the Earth was pulled back into this, its proper universe. The U.N.F.A. team that had wandered the far reaches of a galaxy new to mankind returned home as heroes. Knowledge was gained that will forever alter the course of the Earth’s destiny, and contact was made with a galaxy teeming with life. [“And much of that life was destroyed,” it should have said.] Mankind finally grasped the heavens.

                    But soon afterwards, the “The End” screen develops a question mark, the moon dissolves away, and a message appears on the screen indicating that “the exact time the Earth was released from its dimensional limbo, the Moon slipped through a rift in the time-dimensional barrier.” This is a pretty stupid development, first because if it happened at the “exact time,” the crew, who was still on Moonbase, never would have made it back to Earth. Second, if it’s setting up the sequel, it’s not only derivative but a little lame. Sequels should increase the ante, not lower it. The original game had 8 billion people on the Earth threatened, while the sequel deals with a few thousand on the moon? That’s like Liam Neeson rescuing his daughter only to discover, to his shock, that the kidnappers have now targeted his second cousin, once removed.           

Would the sequel have been called Moon’s Edge?

           A quick GIMLET:

5 points for the game world. The plot is original, and there’s some good world-building to balance out the stupid world-building. The game is definitely more in the vein of pulp sci-fi like Buck Rogers than the more grim, realistic sci-fi we’ve become accustomed to today. Nothing wrong with that; it’s just not my particular brand of vodka. I’d give a higher score if the episodes had a greater since of inter-relation, and the choices you made in one had consequences for others. Alas.

            To see them decay?

         1 point for character creation and development, if by “creation” you count “cloning.” After that, there’s no development and you can’t even choose their names. New World should have known better.

5 points for NPC interaction. There sure are plenty of them, and most of the have at least a half a paragraph of text. NPCs are vital for background information, main quests, and side quests. I just wish you could see them better.

4 points for encounters and foes. Enemies aren’t really any fun, more distinguished by the weapons they wield than anything to do with AI or special attacks and defenses. But the game is relatively strong in other encounters and puzzles, only most of which involved inventory items.

             My characters suss out a puzzle that involves pushing buttons to assemble elements into chemicals.

           4 points for magic and combat. I didn’t like the system for the reasons I gave above. It would have been vastly improved by actions other than simple shooting. But I do recognize some tactics in both ship and ground combat.

3 points for equipment. You sure do get a lot of it, although most of it is for puzzle-solving. Standard RPG fare consists primarily of weapons, armor, and medical kits. There are some interesting exceptions, though, such as a shroud that resurrects slain characters and a pair of boots that let you jump over some obstacles. I like the way that you can replicate any item that you find back at the Moonbase.

         Preparing to don a wetsuit.

          2 points for the economy. It doesn’t really have a monetary economy, but your ability to build ships and items is dependent on finding natural resources. These natural resources are traded by ships and used to pay admittance to some planets and extortion from pirates, so they functionally serve as an economy. It’s still not very good, or complex.

5 points for quests. I can’t complain that the main quest doesn’t provide alternate paths and role-playing options, and there are lots of side-quests that allow you to get better equipment or just information. My failure to follow all of these probably explains why I’m still confused about so many points in the game.

         The “episode” title cards are always fun, but there’s just too many of them.

       3 points for graphics, sound, and interface. This is going to prompt some arguments. It gets most of those points solely from the interface, which is very well done, offering redundant mouse and keyboard commands. However, it loses a point for the pathfinding of the characters on the ground. As for graphics, this is just the sort of 1990s title for which I would prefer black and white iconographic graphics to what we have. There’s simply too much detail for the actual screen resolution, making it hard to tell what the developers were intending to depict on the alien figures, making it nearly impossible to tell objects from furniture, wall tiles from floor tiles, and NPCs from plants (admittedly, my colorblindness may have been a factor). My complaints are only from planetary exploration, though, and the graphics for the Moonbase, animated scenes, and space travel are quite nice. As for the sound, a few good effects are outweighed by an unnecessary piercing beep every time you scroll through a menu. I played with the sound off most of the time.

4 points for gameplay. It gets some credit for quasi-nonlinearity (difficulty enforces a general order) and for some replayability given the different ways that you can approach scenarios. But it was too hard and too long. Five parts would have been better.

             That gives us a final score of 36, technically just above my “recommended” threshold, but I don’t know that I’d recommend it–not as an RPG. It just doesn’t have enough RPG mechanics to keep itself aloft.          

See, the “enjoy” part is where I had trouble.

           Everyone else seems to like it more than I do. Computer Gaming World nominated it for RPG of the year for 1992. (It was up against Eye of the Beholder 2, Might and Magic III, Ultima VII, and Ultima Underworld; Underworld won.) Contemporary reviewers liked the episodic approach as well as the specific content of the episodes. “A solid, charming game with a few lumps in the dough,” proclaimed an oddly anonymous Computer Gaming World writer in July 1992. Scott May, writing in the April 1993 Compute!, called it “a minor masterpiece of size, imagination, and diversity of play.” The June 1992 Dragon gave it four stars but had hardly anything negative to say about it except a few bugs I didn’t experience. No one seemed to be overly bothered by the lack of character development, although a couple of them groused about character creation.            I don’t know if New World really planned for a sequel or if it simply designed every game with a potential sequel in mind depending on sales. Either way, I’ve never seen mention that a sequel was even begun. Outside of publishing several instances of the strategy game Spaceward Ho!, New World stayed away from science-fiction (except for that inherent in Might and Magic) for the rest of its existence. Lead programmer Eric Hyman went to work for the acquired ORIGIN systems but only has credits on the company’s action games before he left for other technology jobs. Neal Hallford still has Betrayal at Krondor (1993), a train derailment (1995), Return to Krondor (1998), and Dungeon Siege (2002) in his future and has never entirely left game development.

It occurs to me that Planet’s Edge has a lot in common with Challenge of the Five Realms, released by MicroProse the same year. Both games are episodic, featuring a bunch of side-quests and multiple paths through them, both with minimal character development and similar approaches to combat. Challenge scored 5 points higher at 41, and I see that I gave it 7 points for the game world compared to Edge‘s 5. I’m prepared to acknowledge that I have a small inherent bias in favor of fantasy games.         Moving on, a random roll of the open 1982-1992 titles produces 1983’s Karkoth’s Keep for DOS, a game that I missed on my first pass but which appeared on MobyGames in 2017. At the far end of the list, I have just added Might and Magic IV (1992), which of course I will play consecutively with Might and Magic V (1993).

        source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/planets-ege-won-with-summary-and-rating/

[thehallofgame]

Review: Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age

Release: 2017

My Rating: 9/10

              Funnily enough, while I wasn’t pleased when Sqaure Enix chose to remaster the Final Fantasy X series, I was overjoyed when they announced the same for the previously Japan-exclusive rerelease of Final Fantasy XII. This version, the Final Fantasy XII: International Zodiac Jobs System has always been at the top of my most wanted port/remaster list for a long time.

              The thing about JRPS ‘International Editions’ is that they’re a bit of a misnomer, and the international tittle in fact referred to a second version of a game that had originally released first in Japan and then worldwide in stages, usually receiving numerous fixes and updates along the way. Finally, an International Version would be re-released back in Japan featuring all the updates featured in the foreign versions as well as, usually, new dungeons and/or challenge bosses. The International version of Final Fantasy XII actually received a massive gameplay overhaul along with new content. The biggest change was the total replacement of the original open character growth system with the new, vastly more structured Zodiac Job system. The HD Zodiac Age remaster added even more tweaks and a lot of polish yet the core feel of the game is still the same.

              The original Final Fantasy XII received less acclaim than its predecessors upon its release. While it’s still looked upon fondly, and often loved, players don’t show the rabid devotion they often do to the other entries in the series. Instead of the traditional fight of good against evil featured in most Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy XII tackled a complex political narrative about a small country, Dalmasca, occupied by a much larger empire and their fight to regain their independence. That situation is complicated greatly by a brewing globe-spanning war and the fact the only remaining heir to the throne has been presumed dead since the end of the invasion two years prior. The game follows this heir, Princess Ashe, through a journey to discover what the best way to help her people and prevent a catastrophic war is. Thus the plot focuses much more on navigating political hurdles, and a magical arms race that’s clearly analogous to nuclear proliferation, than on interpersonal relationships between the characters.

              It was a jarring transition from the previous games, but, with hindsight not necessarily a bad one. It’s been said that Final Fantasy XII might have been before its time, and with the current popularity of politics heavy shows like Game of Thrones and House of Cards it’s hard to argue with that assessment. Yet, that said, the original game always felt like it slighted the core party of characters in favor of the larger narrative. Whilst four of the six party members have a lot of interest and depth: Ashe - crown princess in hiding, Basch – Knight of Kingdom that no longer exists and framed treansoneer, Balthier – Sky pirate with a shady past and suspiciously encyclopedic knowledge of politics, and Fran – outcast from a wood-elf analogue species who’s thrown her lot in with Balthier…. The other two characters: Vaan and Penelo are war orphans, street kids and awkward audience surrogate characters who bring nothing to the table story-wise and have significantly less reason to be involved in the events of Final Fantasy XII than their costars.

              Each of the main four characters have one or more big narrative arcs and moment throughout the game, as well as evolving relationships with one another that are tantalizing but rarely get explored to a satisfying degree. The Zodiac Age update introduced little tweaks, a few new lines of dialogue from a previously silent character, cut lines here and there (notably Ashe seems to gasp in surprise much less often) and suddenly the story flows a little more naturally. It’s an excellent touch and something I’m delighted to see. It also plays in well with the updated audio. Not only did the soundtrack get re-recorded with a full orchestra to great impact, but the voice acting got cleaned up some too. There wasn’t too much they could do with the old audio and some of the voices still sound a bit fuzzy but the cleaning they did managed helped a lot with the coherence of some stronger fantasy accents. Amusingly the lip-sync with the English dialogue is now worse than ever but that’s easily overlooked by most.

              Facial animation aside, the updated visuals are stunning. Final Fantasy XII’s environments were always exquisite and intricately detailed in the dreamy watercolor style of the late Playstation 2 era. In HD the true extent of this can actually be seen (not in the least part because the camera is now able to tilt up and down, not just rotate around the player character). Buildings and crumbling ruins have gloriously detailed and ornate floors, walls and ceilings. Enormous natural panoramas frame out-door maps with gorgeously rendered stormy skies and mountains in the distance. HD visuals make it much easier to see the line between the three dimensional world map and the sky boxes they abut, but with equally detailed and gorgeous enemies and set pieces to focus on it’s easy to let the odd visual inconsistency go.

              The character models have also been subtly updated. They look almost exactly like the originals except with crisper lines, smoother corners and better shading and shadows. Also, Vaan’s abs (which famously looked terrible) were also updated and look less bad, but still a little awkward and unnatural, which as a long time fan feels to me as it should be.

              It was, however, gameplay that received the most editing. The odd traps wherein opening certain treasure chests would result in losing the ability to gain the most powerful weapon in the game have been removed to much relief. Instead, the original legendary weapons and some new ones are now easier to get at though the chances for them to appear are still usually in the fractions of a percentile point. There are now more chests in the game total, and most of the highest level magics can only be found in specific chests rather than purchased. Likewise, stores and the bazaar system have been tweaked so they have different items than in the original. The bazaar system is a sort of minigame that spices up the usual cycle of selling loot and buying new equipment. By selling certain types of loot the player unlocks bazaar goods which are basically blind boxes with vague descriptions that usually contain items and equipment at sizable discounts. The changes ultimately reward exploring the more obscure reaches of the game. Long time players might welcome this but it could frustrate newcomers who don’t necessarily want to have to go on several sidequests to reach the chest containing the highest level black magic spell.

              Combat received minor adjustments, mostly to flow and pacing options in the customization menu. The culmination of turn based and real-time combat the final fantasy series had been tweaking for years Final Fantasy XII’s encounters were all done in real time and in the dungeons themselves, instead of random encounters. Actions are selected and then performed after a charge bar runs downs. The length of this charge time depends on the action being taken and can be effected by unlockable character skills, attributes and equipment. Battle pace can be adjusted in the menu, but most players preferred it turned all the way to max, and many still felt the pace too slow. To that end there are now options to use the right shoulder button to toggle game speed up to two or even four times normal speed. This is great for grinding, even if the four times speed can be a little dizzying and can involve a lot of crashing into walls because of how fast the characters are scurrying about. Battle can also be toggled to pause or not pause when the player opens the combat menu. This give a lot of flexibility to tailor play styles, especially when combined with the gambit system.

              The gambits, which can also be toggled on and off during combat, are a set of instructions for how the party should act that can be fiddled with as much or as little as the player wants. The game starts with a small selection of basic actions available to the player but soon a plethora of gambits can be purchased for a nominal fee and integrated as the characters gain new abilities and the player gets a feel for the game. The Zodiac Age adds several new gambits, some very specific, but doesn’t alleviate some of the core problems of the system. The most glaring is there’s no good way to differentiate circumstances. Setting a character to cast buffing magic means they’ll cast it constantly, and there’s no way to specify for them to only do it in difficult battles or until their MP starts running low. Likewise there’s no way to specify only do something once and stop if it doesn’t work. The system does work well for basic combat, providing automatic healing and switching to magic for flying enemies but fiddly encounters still have to be micro managed.

              Gambit slots are limited, but more, more than the player could need, can be purchased from the License Board. Characters gain license points, as well as experience points, for felling enemies. While leveling up increases character stats it is the license system that really allows customization and progression. Each character now selects one of twelve license boards (classes) with a unique set of abilities and they are then locked into that board. This is what the titular Zodiac Jobs System is. The player will then spend points there to purchase new abilities and the ranks to equip better armaments, and with each skill purchased more are revealed. In the early game much consideration might be needed, depending on play style, on which classes and abilities to select as, in the Zodiac system, it’s easy to end up with no healers or mages. These boards will later also host the ability to obtain summons, special magic and eventually the ability to add a second class/board to every character.

              The actions that can be taken in combat are fairly standard. All classes have at least one type of weapon they can use, though these are divided into ranged and melee and some mid to late game enemies are considered flying and can only be hit with ranged weapons or magic. There are also a wide variety of magics to use which are subdivided into several different sub-types: white, black, green, time and arcane magics. The player can also use items at will or hold a trigger button to disengage combat and flee with the party, though the enemies may be willing to chase the party up to the edge and out of the map before giving up. But, before doing that, Final Fantasy is the only game in the series that lets the player swap out a fallen party member with a healthy one from the pool of three inactive characters and continue fighting.

Another unique touch for FFXII is that there is also a fourth option on the core battle menu called Myst. Myst is a magic energy that exists in the world and that can be used to summon powerful entities into battle once they’ve been slain and recruited, or to use powerful magics. Each character can learn up to three unique, tiered myst spells. With each tier they will gain a new bar of Myst energy that they can expend to summon or use mysts. The summons, called Espers, take the place of the rest of the party when and join the fight battle. They posses powerful attacks and magic and can be very useful in controlling crowds. The myst magics are more focused and casting one gives the ability to chain the rest of the party’s mist abilities. Once one of the spells is started a timer appears and if the player can select another party members spell then that character will go next. The challenge comes when the party’s Myst bars are depleted and the player has to hope they can cycle to a randomly occurring myst charge and that they will then have time to select that and the resulting attack. If enough of the spells are chained a final capstone attack will deal massive damage to every enemy on the map.

              The original version of this game had deep and involved combat that rewarded experimentation and customization. The Zodiac Age seems to have softened its difficulty curve noticeably and there isn’t much in the campaign that will slow the player’s path. Luckily the Zodiac Age still contains myriad side quests and a very successful challenge-hunt mode where the player can accept quests to slay special, extremely difficult monsters. The hunt quests are all fun, interesting and feature one of kind monsters. The hardest of these are epic battles only for the most dedicated fans. If that wasn’t enough the Zodiac age also introduced an after end-game boss rush mode, completing which unlocks even harder difficulties to play the base game on.

              The final change of note is the ability to toggle an overlay of the current dungeon or city map onto the main screen. The transparent map is surprisingly subtle considering it is always easy to see and often covers the entire screen, yet it’s easy to tune out until its’ needed. This proves a great help in labyrinthe dungeons where the small mini-map that remains permanently in the top right of the screen doesn’t provide enough help. The catch 22 here of course is the maps that are meant to be confusing and disable the mini-map are no longer an issue. It’s a minor gripe, but a symptom of the unfortunate trend of the Zodiac Age being easier than the original iteration of Final Fantasy XII.

              Even with the new map overlay to help the dungeons still feel big, well designed and complex. While the game isn’t open world it is composed of many unique areas that have secrets and hidden paths to explore. The way the maps are cut up between smallish areas is a pretty apparent signifier of the game’s age but the brief loading screens provided an opportunity to integrate an unobtrusive auto-save feature so that the player no longer has to rely on the old fashioned save-stations scattered around the maps. Some of these stations, in addition to healing the party completely, also function as teleporters that can send the party to any other map they’ve visited provided they have a Teleport Stone. This is, of course, if the party doesn’t want to walk, book passage on an airship between cities or hire a chocobo (giant flightless bird) to ride across maps. Unlike certain sequels, that shall remain pointedly unnamed, in Final Fantasy XII the player is free to explore the world, find new dungeons and complete side-quests whenever they choose or not at all which is awesome for balancing pacing and player freedom.

              All this tweaking and fiddling, and at the time amazingly long five year development period, paid off in a beautiful and immersive world that feels alive and full of secrets. While some annoying hiccups still remain the changes the Zodiac Age made work well to make the game feel more complete and finished. Final Fantasy XII was probably the last truly good outing for the series and feels more relevant now than it did ten years ago. With its’ unique feel and its departure from ubiquitous final fantasy tropes the Zodiac Age probably makes an ideal jumping in point for people who want to explore this long-running franchise.