War of the Lions: The perfect port of a gaming classic

The original Final Fantasy Tactics on the PS1 was a big hit and a welcomed departure from the series: It was a complete change in game play with a masterfully told story. Now nine years later comes a remastered port to the portable console with a few additions. Are these additions worth a look, or is War of the Lions simply a quick cash in? And for those who never had the chance to play the original, is it worth picking up for the first time? Let's take a deeper look and find out.






Gameplay:

Despite the title of "Final Fantasy" this isn't your typical turn based battle system. The battle system is more reminiscent of Tactics Ogre or older Front Mission games. The battled field is broken up into many small squares that can only be occupied by one character at a time. It's also a turn-based system so one character or enemy goes at a time; they are each allowed one movement and one action per turn unless otherwise hindered or amplified by a magic spell or ability. There is no time limit so the battles end when either sides forces are completely vanquished.

This system allows for massive strategy and customization due the varied landscapes in battle and the extremely deep job system. The job system is 21 classes deep allowing to start your character as either a Chemist, the base for magic using classes, or a Squire, the base for melee heavy classes. As you level your characters you can either choose to stick with one class and maximize it to have say the best Knight in all of Ivalice, or mix and match abilities and have a Wizard wearing Heavy Armor.

The battles and customization of your characters are basically all the gameplay there is. There is no walking around towns per say, you simply follow roads on the map from town to town. But you will have so much fun playing around with the various abilities trying to make your ultimate force of butt kickers! There are literally ENDLESS number of combos for classes and abilities. You'll want to try to get other classes just to see if they have abilities you'll want to use.  It's extremely gratifying to see the group you make go to work in battle and destroy enemies exactly the way you planed! 

This system also allows for high amounts of replay as you can try other class combos and abilities to see if they fit your strategy better. In this particular version of Final Fantasy Tactics there are two new classes they added: The Onion Knight and the Dark Knight. To put it bluntly the Onion Knight is useless: Its only unique ability is it can use every weapon in the game. The Dark Knight is by far the best class, but also the most difficult to get. The Dark Knight has the ability the drain life from a distance, on top of performing devastating AOE attacks from a distance. It is a challenge to get one but having a Dark Knight is well worth the time.

There are also 2 new special characters from other Final Fantasy titles that are playable in the game. The first being Luso form Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced 2 who acts as a Beast Master. The 2nd being the cocky sky pirate Balthier from Final Fantasy 12 who acts as a dual class: A Thief/ Chemist. 

Sound:
There is quite a lot that has changed in the sound department of this port. As always the music is heartwarming and magical. There are plenty of tunes that make you feel relaxed and at ease. They are expertly scored and fit well with the theme and time of the story. There are also plenty of intense battle themes as well. You will definitely walk away from this game remembering a handful of songs and wanting to purchase the soundtrack.

One cool addition to this game was voice acting. In the original port of the game all the cut scenes were simply in text form. It worked well and didn't take anything away from the game. In War of the Lions all the story cut scenes are animated with great voice acting. They speak in old English so it can be hard to decipher what they're trying to say at times, but all in all it fits the mood and setting of the game and adds a new dimension to the game that the original installment didn't have. It helps the player better relate to the characters in a way that is hard to when you're reading text from sprites. With motion animation and voices it makes the characters more organic and really brings them to life.

Graphics. 

 By today's standards these graphics are completely outdated and even unplayable to some. The sprites are detailed enough though to keep players engaged in the battles. Whats nice is that the graphics for the various weapons will change as you upgrade your gear, however the armor will stay the same.

The graphics that really stand out in this port are from the beautifully hand-drawn animated cut scenes. As mentioned before, they add new life to the game that keep the player more engaged and have a stronger bond with the characters. These cut scenes also have a filter on them that gives the impression they are being show on an old piece of parchment as well as the lines you might often scene in the early days of cinematography.

When it comes down to it, the graphics aren't stunning, but have a charm that can't be matched. After awhile players won't even notice them because how involved they will be with the game.

Story:
This is the aspect that takes center stage for this game. It it widely regarded as one of the best RPG stories ever told, and with good reason.

As the main protagonist you play as Ramza Beoulve, the son in a well respected upper-class family. The story starts off with Ramza as a Knight in training in the middle of a War. The War, nick named "The Lion War" because of the two opposing leaders, began over who would become the true heir to the crown. As Ramza sees his brothers greedy ways he decides to strike out on his own as a vigilante of sorts doing what he thinks is right for the good of the country.

Without giving too much away, various other factors become intertwined within the war to make for a complicated but masterfully told story. You know when the likes of the Church, Zodiac monsters, and the rise of a simple peasant to Knighthood are involved its destined for greatness. The story of The War of the Lions is one Fantasy you won't soon be forgetting.


Final Thoughts: Play It
Whether you are wanting to play this for the first time or are a fan of the original, Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions is well worth it. The battle and job systems respectively are deep and fun. There is a ton of variety and plenty of room for different approaches to each battle. Whatever style you like to play there will be some job combo that you will find appealing and fun to battle with.

The translation has been much improved from the original as well. This is the definitive version of the story you want to experience. With the animated cut scenes, corrected character and city names it makes for an easier to understand and enjoyable story.

This makes for the perfect portable game. You can pick it up, play a battle, and put it away for another day. Don't let the fact that it's a portable game fool you though. The game can take well over 30-40 hours or more if you do all the side missions. If you're a fan of strategy or RPG games you will love War of the Lions. If you haven't picked it up yet you need to go to your local Game Stop now! You won't regret it, nor will you be putting this game down anytime soon.

  

Recent Purchase

So a week or two ago I went on a spending binge and I bought a good amount of games to add to my collection. Now the picture to the side isn't one of my games, but it might as well be. I have 17/30 games shown in the picture. The only difference is mine are ALL black label =). In fact I went on such a binge that my bank froze my  card because they thought it had been stolen. The person I talked with on the phone recommended setting up a second account just for ebay buying to prevent my card from being frozen. I didn't even know such a thing existed. I think she was just trying to set me up with another account.

Anyways here is the list of game I scooped up: Breath of Fire 3+4, Dragon Valor, Eternal Eyes, FF Anthology+Origins, Jade Cocoon, Kartia, Lunar 2, Rhapsody, Shadow Madness, Tales of Destiny, and Thousand Arms. I got so many because a good chunk of these were $15 or under being sold by the same guy with FREE SHIPPING. So I gobbled 'em all up before someone else did!

Now with that said I have a lot to go, including most of the expensive ones (Suikoden II, Tales 2, the Personas, etc). I also decided to include 2 more games to the grand total list to make it 70 games. Those 2 games being Brigandine and FF Tactics. They were on so many lists and I'm probably going to buy Brigandine eventually (I own FFT) so I thought why not.

Well that's all the updates for now. Look for the Suikoden review soon as well as the launch of the new design for the blog. Thanks for reading. Later Gamers!

Wild Arms: Final Thoughts

After a long weekend of re-doing boss fights, looking up guides, and actually having a little bit of fun I finally finished the game! I know in a lot of my previous posts I have given this game a really hard time, but as I write this I want to try to be as fair as possible. I recently found out this was only 1 of maybe 5 RPGs that came out on the PS1 before Final Fantasy 7. So this game really was innovative for the time and probably seemed really original. Unfortunately I'm a bit biased since I played this game post- FF7. With all this said it's time to lay down my thoughts and tell you what I think of the game.




Gameplay:

To be totally honest the game-play in this game is actually really unique. Not only for it's time but overall. The way you explore dungeons, upgrade abilities, build up to "limit-break" esc abilities is like nothing I've seen in an RPG before (outside of the sequels for this game).

As far as abilities go, each of the 3 characters you control in the game have their own unique way to level up their abilities. Cecilia uses magic and you don't simply start off with magic abilities. You find these items throughout the game called "Crest Graphs". You take these Crest Graphs to magic shops and they will exchange them for spells essentially. The more you find the more varied your spell arsenal becomes. Later in the game you can also find a "Secret Shop" that allows you to purchase higher level spells. Rudy has guns which are named ARMS in the game. You can find various ARMS and upgrade their stats, such as: Attack Power, Accuracy, and Ammunition. Lastly, Jack as any array of attacks called Fast Draw. He discovers them through the game either in story events or side quests. The battles themselves aren't anything too special. It's pretty much your basic turn based battle.

One really fun aspect of the game are the characters' various Tools. Each character will eventually acquire 4 tools. Each one has a different puzzle solving purpose. Maybe it's Jacks' lighter to make fires, Cecilias' canister to put out a fire, or Rudys bombs to blow things up. Now I've never seen a puzzle-solving dynamic this fun or unique. It makes the puzzles not only challenging but really fun. It makes you think how you can utilize these tools in unique ways. It also leaves you really satisfied when you finally figure out some of the more challenging ones.

The one thing that really did bug me is that there were WAY too many random battles, especially in dungeons. Just when your about to figure a section of a puzzle out theres a battle. It also can take like 7 attempts to run away at times.  Then after the battle you cant remember if you took a certain path already and end up wasting time back tracking.

Sound:

Personally, the sound of this game didn't wow me in any way. I can't remember any music from the game outside of the battle music, and thats only because i heard it every 30 seconds. The sound effects are okay I guess. They go with the game and add life to it. I wish I could write more here, but the sound in this game is just forgettable. There weren't any moments in the game where I really wanted to go find that song on youtube or anything. The only song that was the least bit intriguing to me was the ending sequence. It's got a soft acoustic guitar feel to it. it's calming and fits the scene well. Other than that, I think you'll live if you never buy the soundtrack to this game.

Graphics:

Like I mentioned before, this was Pre-FF7 so not much can be expected. The characters look extremely blocky, which was common in early on in the first fully 3D consoles such as the PlayStation. But to be totally honest I don't really mind it that much. That's the era that brought me into gaming and those kind of graphics are endearing in away. There's a certain charm to it and brings me back to the good ol' days.

The spell and attacks effects are basic but work well with what they're trying to do. There are really no pre-rendered backgrounds like in Final Fantasies. The building and world map graphics are pretty similar to the characters graphics which kind of adds a wholeness to the game. But the one thing that kills the game aesthetically for me is practically everything is earth toned. The towns, dungeons, and castles are all a shade of brown, green, or gray. The only real color we get is in the characters' costumes. Cecilia has a bit of pink, Rudy has a red shirt and blue hair. Overall it's just kind of ugly to look at.

I guess you can say it adds to the feeling of the game, like its supposed to put you in the setting of that time. But I just find it unappealing. Also I have to add, where is this "Wild West" theme that seems to follow the series? It certainly didn't start here because there is nothing remotely Western about this game. There are Knights in Armor, Kings, and Demons. The game never even hints at it being remotely Wild West esc.

Story:

The game starts in a really odd way actually. You start the game separately with each character until they each find their way to Adlehyde. They all meet in this town and decide to travel together. After your first quest, finally the opening title sequence rolls. When this happened I had two thoughts: This is either the shortest game ever or I just got a game over somehow. It turns out this is when the game really starts.

So the story essentially revolves around Jack , Rudy, and Cecilia stopping the world from falling apart (in more ways than one). Demons have been in Felgaia for sometime are about to take over. The world loses hope in itself and the guardians of the planet cease to exist. The 3 heroes travel around trying to restore hope in the world and the spirits of the guardians to help defeat the demons. At least I think this is the plot....It was pretty hard to follow and I couldn't really get into it.

You go off on side quests that are part of the main game that deviate you from the main story for hours at a time. The story seems to just go all over the place for me. One thing that this game did that I really hate in RPGs is that Rudy, essentially the one main character, has no dialog. Why? Chrono Cross did this and so did Legend of Legaia if I'm not mistaken. I hate it. You never get to know what the character is like, you're just told instead of experiencing it. Most of the dialog is kind of cheesy and the revelations the characters have just seem forced. There isn't a lot of build up. In a good story the story arcs make sense and there events that correlate to why they happen. In Wild Arms it just seems to happen only to serve the purpose of moving along the story as opposed to it coming to fruition based on past events.

Finally, the one HUGE thing that killed the game for me was not knowing where you're supposed to go. There are an uncountable amount of times where you either need to collect something, kill a monster, etc. After you complete the task and the event following, nothing happens. You are just expected to walk around and talk to everyone in town and towns you've been to before to figure out where to go next. You could play this game for probably close to 80 hours just because you'd be wondering around helplessly trying to figure out what to do next. There are even ESSENTIAL items to completing this game that aren't given to you as part of an event in the main story. You have to find them on your own.

Here is the best example I have of this (*WARNING SPOILER ALERT! SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS.). At one point in the game you un-earth an ancient Golem and eventually bring it back to life. You can also you it as vehicle to cross certain terrain you can't cross with any other vehicle in the game. Well how to do you summon the Golem? You need an Ocarina. Where is this Ocarina, does someone give it to you or tell you where it is? Who knows and of course not! First, you have to find a secluded house in the forest that has no visible game graphic on the world map until you're on top of it and it says "Forgotten Ruins". If that's not bad enough, you have to walk around a house to find it. Once you play the ocarina, only then can you summon the Golem and ride it. How cryptic is that? The Golem is so essential that you can't enter the final dungeon of the game without it. That is just plain ridiculous. I would have never figured that out without a guide.

Final Thoughts: Don't Play It
All things considering (price on the PlatStation Network of $5.99, fun puzzle solving, and nostalgic graphics) this game should be worth a play through right? Maybe. But I personally can't recommend it. The puzzles are fun, really fun, but it just doesn't save the game from how cryptic it is. There are parts in the game that are down right agonizing to figure out without a guide. I personally used one for a good majority of the game. I wanted to finish it to see the whole thing and I was pretty sure I never would without a guide. The game is just difficult for the wrong reasons.

The fact that the game rarely explains what to do next is annoying to me. Some might see it as a challenge but it takes away too much from the game for me. I'm also recalling a few puzzles near the end of the game and am baffled at how anyone is supposed to figure them out. Even in the guide it says "if you didn't know where to look this would be difficult for you to get." The fact that I had to switch online walkthroughs is a testament to the difficulty and crypticness of this game. As I was looking for images and screen shots I was reading comments about the game and most of them said something like "This game was awesome! But I got stuck and never finished it..." So unless you like extreme challenges or plain don't mind using a walkthrough then I'd say avoid this game. It's not worth the headache and the ending isn't too satisfying either.

For my next game...I think I'm going to avoid playing Wild Arms 2 for awhile haha. So that pretty much leaves Suikoden. I might hold off on playing it for a bit considering how much of a chore Wild Arms was. Thanks again for reading everyone. Spread the word and share this blog with your friends who enjoy games or just want something interesting to read. Later Gamers!

Collection Update & New Review Coming Soon

Over the weekend I found some good deals on a few games. Those games being Dragon Warrior VII and Wild Arms 1&2. I've played Dragon Warrior VIII for the PS2 but not 7, so I'm interested to see if it's as enjoyable. It's apparently the best selling PS1 RPG in Japan (even above Final Fantasy 7) so it must be half-way decent.

Also, I just beat Wild Arms 1 about an hour ago so look for a review of it in the next few days. It might seem silly to essentially buy the same game twice, but the way I look at it is this: I'll have the game on two platforms. I can have my Wild Arms on the go or sit down on a console. The combined price for a virtual download and hard copy is less than half the price when it was brand new. Lastly, I just want to have the hard copy as a collectors item.

Anyways, thanks for reading as always. Once I get back to the states I want to start doing videos so spread the word if you think anyone would be interested in this sort of thing. I know Shanna has it in her RSS feed to share so thanks for that! Well I hope you all have a great finish to your weekend everyone. Later Gamers!

Moved blog, Lunar Update, and FF7 Music Video

Hey everyone, and by everyone I mean Nick and Bryan, I moved the blog for a few reasons. 1.) The blog.com interface was super slow and glitchy, as Bryan mentioned before, and 2.) since Blogger is affiliated with Google I can put ads on the blog! Not that I'll be rolling the dough, but one can dream!

So Lunar Update! I'm only 5 hours or into the game but I'm freakin' loving it! It's weird considering the original Lunar came out after Grandia, but it feels like it fixed and improved upon everything that made Gradia great. The graphics, are charming, the music is addicting, the battles are fun, and every part of the story seems like its there for a reason rather than just extended the game pointlessly.

Overall I'm really enjoying it and recommend it to ANYONE who has a PSP or loves RPGs. I'm not too sure what the original game is like because I've never played it, but with the new updates I'm sure the old fans will still love it along with the new ones.

That's about it for Lunar for now, I'll have to post more when the time comes. Anyways I just wanted to leave you with the awesome video I found on youtube. It's an acoustic remix of the classic FF7 Theme. I hope you enjoy it and let me know what you think. Later gamers!

Grandia: A cool little adventure game.

So recently I completed the Game Arts PS1 classic Grandia. I didn't really know much about the game before starting it. I know that it was for the PS1 and I bought it for my friend Bryan for his 14th(?) birthday. It was on the PlayStation network for only $5.99. I thought heck why not! I'm playing through 2 RPGs I've beaten before (FF7,8) so why not try something new that has some popularity? For a game that boasts having "Over 80 hours of game play" I figured I would at least get my money's worth out of it!

So as soon as started the game the graphics and overall way it played was very reminiscent of Xeno Gears. The towns and backgrounds were designed decently well, but the characters themselves had this weird sprite feel to it that wasn't quite super Nintendo and not quite up to what the PS1 could do. Also the way you way you rotate the camera around with shoulder buttons in towns and dungeons. It has its own charm, doesn't take anything away from the game, and is still playable considering I still play a game like Final Fantasy Tactics. It's weird to pinpoint what era this game is supposed to take place in. It has a semi-modern feel to it with the way the towns are designed and the presence of airships and tanks. However, you spend most of the game in forests, villages, and rural type towns. Anyways I don't want to sit here and review the game per say, but rather talk about my experience as I played through the game and the impression it left on me. 

So as I start to go through the beginning stages of the game I'm loving for one big reason: the game isn't taking itself too seriously. It isn't trying to be the super over the top epic. It's just about a boy who wants to go on adventures and one day decides to live out his dream. I can also relate to the characters and story more this way. There are a lot of scenes where your having dialogue with the town bully, your younger friend who looks up to you, and your mom who hassles you about being late for dinner. None of this is done with cliche dialogue, but done tastefully and with voice acting so you can really feel the emotion behind the dialogue.

 

It feels like a coming of age story in a way. This kid Justin is a reckless energetic boy who experiences everything from leaving home, love, loss, growing up, standing up for what you believe, amongst many other areas you grow as a person in your life. I loved every second of this story and was sad when it was finished, for more reasons than one.


This is exactly the type of game that I miss and that isn't made these days. Sure the graphics are nothing to call home about, but the voice acting is good and gets you into the story more, the animated cut scenes are cool and add to the overall experience, but more than anything it's an engaging and relate-able story. It's easy to follow, you want to keep going to see what happens next, and is an overall satisfying experience. It brought me back to that golden age of RPGs and is basically the inspiration for this blog. Let's keep it real though; it ain't no Final Fantasy, but it is an awesome game overall and is well worth checking out. 

Games these days aren't made like this for one reason or another. There seems to be a bigger emphasis on innovation; whether it's the battle system, the graphics, or the level up system. I think developers sometimes forget that RPGs are story driven. Way back in the day, RPGs were text based and relied heavily on the story. Now a days the rely too much on graphics while the story takes a back seat. I think the PS1 RPG days were the perfect transition period when stories were still the focal point and the graphics complemented the story well with out over-shadowing it.


I may or may not do a video retrospective/ review on this game so you can get a better feel for what I'm talking about. I'll just wrap this up by saying that it was fun to play an old style RPG that I've never played before and still find it entertaining. Sometimes games like these don't age well and going back to play them can be difficult (especially when the graphics aren't up to par). However, there was nothing that I would really change about this game. For $5.99 on the PSN it's TOTALLY worth the price and your time. Go check it out if you haven't already. 

Right now I'm in the middle of Lunar Silver Star Story Harmony (The PSP Remake) and only being a few hours in I'm falling in love with it. The music, characters, graphics, just everything! It's made by the same company that made Grandia, Game Arts, so I'm expecting a similar experience! Thanks for reading this, if anyone's actually reading it haha, and keep playing! Later gamers.

This post was originally going post this on the intro blog, but it got long so here is a longer opinion based blog about why I started this...

See I haven't bought a "Next Gen" console because frankly there's no game that seems worth buying any system for. I'm expected to pay $600+ just because there's a new gaming system? I literally have bought 4 PS2's in my lifetime (sad I know :P). One when it was BIG and new, one slim one, one to replace the broken slim one, and then a final brand new slim one from the store to replace them all.

I would rather do that then buy a new expensive system, a new library of games, and also make some games obsolete (PS2 games aren't backwards compatible on the PS3).

So if I'm not playing new games what am I playing? Old PS1 RPG's, mostly. Sure I'll pick up a Resident Evil or Madden now and again but nothing has captured my imagination or created so many fond memories as RPG's have. In my opinion games are the best median to tell a story. Not only is there a visual aspect to where you can see what's happening, a text aspect to a certain extent, but the biggest feature is the immersion aspect. What other median of story telling allows you to literally control the story and be the characters?

That being said I think that the PS1 has the best RPG's of any console or PC gaming system. It was that period where 3-D was new and improved the graphics, but not quite at the point where graphics superseded the story. The story was always the main focus and the stories in these games are better than most books I've read or movies I've seen.

But ever since then this genre has taken a downturn I feel. This is no clearer than the PS2 abomination know as Final Fantasy 10, See Final Fantasy revolutionized the RPG genre as a whole and made it more mainstream. Although this is up for debate, Square Enix put out 3 of the best RPGs of the PS1: Final Fantasy 7, 8, and 9. With the improved graphics of the PS2 there was no doubt that Final Fantasy 10 was going to blow our damn minds! The graphics were amazing and it had a lot of hype. Too bad all that hype fell flat on its face...

See the biggest problem with Final Fantasy 10 was that the way you traveled around the world was extremely linear in comparison to the recent games. There wasn't really a "world map" or any vehicles to a certain extent. It also felt very cooker cutter. Walk around, puzzle, boss fight, cut scene. Rise and repeat. I know the old games did that too, but with this one it was SO OBVIOUS! It was just boring and to be honest I just couldn't finish it and I haven't to this day.

Okay so maybe 10 was just an experiment and we should give the series another shot right? Well here comes Final Fantasy 11 an MMORPG. What a disappointment! We had to wait even longer for another game. Then came Final Fantasy 12. Honestly this might have been even more hyped than 10, but for different reasons. See this was supposed to take place in the world of Ivalice, the world in the legendary game Final Fantasy Tactics. The teasers and screen shots all looked promising and amazing. But again it just plain failed...The characters were boring, the leveling up system was weird, it was boring, and my personal biggest disappointment was no Nobuo Uematsu (the music composer for all the previous games)! So all the charm was out. The only interesting character was Balthier but he didn't have nearly the game time he should have.

So this is about the point I gave up on any new console RPGs being good. I gave it the old college try but they just didn't entertain me and were more of a chore than anything. I played a few random games here and there like Tales of the Abyss and Kingdom Hearts (which is actually pretty amazing). But nothing grabbed me like the games of old...Final Fantasy 7...Chrono Cross...Xeno Gears...Tales of Destiny. I was pretty much convinced that good RPGs were dead.

But then the nail in the freakin' coffin came only as of late. Now I much preface this by saying that I haven't even played one second of this game, but only heard resounding negative reviews from it, outside of possibly being the best looking game of all time. Final Fantasy 13...the game that killed RPGs? We'll see. The complaints seem to go something like this 1: LINEARITY. The game seems to be a flurry of straight corridors with almost no towns. This takes out the exploration aspect of the game that made so many older games fun. 2:Only being able to control one character in battle. People are kind of on the fence with this one. 3: The data log. Why do you need a data log of definitions and explanations to tell a story? I shouldn't have to read cliff notes before reading a story. 4: It feels more like an interactive movie than game. There seems to be an overwhelming amount of cutscenes with a limited amount of puzzles which leads people to think this game would be a better movie than game.

So with all the recent flops with RPGs and the advent of the PS1 classics on the Playstation Network I've been getting into old RPGs that I never played and have been playing them on my PSP. This has inspired me to also start a collection of every PS1 RPG. This will be an expensive hobby but it's like having a library of books. RPGs are just another median to tell a good story. And PS1 RPGs seem to be the best. Currently I own these titles: Final Fantasty 7, Tactics, Xeno Gears, Chrono Cross, Legend of Dragoon, and Harvest Moon. My collection is small but it'll grow fast. I recently also beat Grandia and am in the middle of playing the remake of Lunar: Silver Star Story.

So look forward to a blog about Grandia soon and thanks for checking out the blog. Later gamers!