Let's talk about Final Fantasy Type-0 HD [SPOILERS]

I finally completed NieR: Automata this past weekend and Final Fantasy Type-0 HD on Monday.  Although I want to talk about NieR: Automata, I feel eager to talk about Final Fantasy Type-0 HD first.  NieR: Automata was a great game and I had very little to complain about other than some parts of the game being a bit of a time waster.  FF Type-0 HD; however, had a LOT of problems and yet it left quite an impression on me.  So let's get to it.



Final Fantasy Type-0 had originally released on the Playstation Portable system and was never brought to the Western market.  I was excited about this Final Fantasy game that seemed like it was full of action and combat.  Thankfully, they announced a Final Fantasy Type-0 HD version that was going to release for PS4 and PC.  I had waited for a sale and picked it up for PC only to realize that my computer couldn't run it very well.  I had gotten a new computer in the past year and so continued playing it on and off until I decided to really sit down and get through it the past two week.

Final Fantasy Type-0 is part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis series, which means it takes place in the same universe as Final Fantasy XIII.  FF Type-0 takes place in the land of Orience where the regions of the land are divided into four nations, each blessed by a Crystal that grants its people powers.  Like many other works of fiction that talks about divided land, one nation wants more power from the other nations which leads to political strife.  What I believe the game wanted to achieve through its story was the depiction of human struggle on both sides of a battle, a common theme among stories of war.

The game starts off with scenes of an invasion to a city.  A young man wanders the battlefield and asks around for someone in a red cape.  Shortly after, soldiers march in and start blowing up buildings, impaling the man's comrades in front of him and getting shot in the process.  The man is saved by his Chocobo and finds a sword to fight off the remaining soldier.  He continues searching for the one with a red cape only to have the Chocobo shot and have soldiers surround him.  At the last moment, he yells out for the boy he was looking for.  The one called Ace fights off the soldiers and runs to the man named Izana to try to heal him.  But it's too late and Ace's healing magic takes no effect to the severely injured and bloodied Izana.  Up to this point, I don't really call that much blood (if any) being depicted in a Final Fantasy game.  The one's dressed similar to Ace fights off the remaining soldiers in the area and turns to Izana.  As Ace and company stood there, they witnessed a dying man and his Chocobo companion as they cry out in agony of not wanting to die.  This opening felt so real, as in it didn't feel like a poorly written scene for a videogame like most cut-scenes in videogames.  It was a surprising opening and I was taken aback by the grim scene from a Final Fantasy game.  Despite this, I was excited to see how emotionally involving and deep the story was going to be throughout the game.

Well, I was pretty disappointed in that regards because everything after that opening took a sharp 180 turn into the other direction where the writing, characters, and delivery of dialogue were awkward, cheesy, humorous, and/or abrupt.  This is just story we're talking about.  In terms of gameplay, it's a game with good ideas mixed with a myriad of poor design choices.

[Pros of the game/Things I liked]
+ Characters: First and foremost, I want to talk about the characters of the game.  With 14 characters all dressed the same way, I didn't think there would be much to distinguish the characters by other than the weapons they used.  But as I played the game, I grew fond of each of the characters because of their specialty on the battlefield as well as their personality.  I will admit now that the characters don't have much depth to them, that they're trope-driven, and that they're hardly believable in the scope of reality (considering how real the characters felt in the opening); however, the interactions between the characters were some of my favorite moments from the game.
[Class Zero]: An Elite group of individuals that carry out dangerous missions
   = Ace (Cards): Ace is often depicted as the leader of the group, even though he really isn't.  He's young, but has an air of maturity with a calm and collected way of thinking.  He's the voice of reason in the group and the one that tries to keep everyone together.
   = Deuce (Flute): Deuce is kind of hard to keep alive since she isn't much of an offensive character, but I like to have her in my party and buff the other two characters as it helps a lot.  She's soft spoken and kind to those around her.  She's among one of the girls that gossip within the group.
   = Trey (Bow): Trey isn't exactly arrogant, but he definitely likes to show off his vast knowledge.  I find it funny in one of the study events where their Commanding Officer asks them a questions, he's first to answer but answers incorrectly.  When Cater starts experiencing cases of déjà vu and gets scared because of it, she turns to Trey for help.  He could've said "it's probably nothing" or ask "do you feel ill in any way?" to reassure Cater that she was okay.  Instead, he goes on a long winded explanation of what might cause it and the history and research that goes into that topic.


Trey was a really useful character and saved me a lot in missions with the ability to take down flying or unreachable enemies as he has the longest range in the game with lots of damage behind it.
   = Cater (Magicite Pistol): She was a good support damage to have in the party as she's able to attack a decent amount of times at a mid-range without putting herself in danger and having to worry about healing her.  She's blunt and headstrong so she doesn't hesitate to speak her mind, even if it might upset the people around her.  She experiences déjà vu and didn't understand why she feels like so many events have happened before.  It is revealed in a secret clip after beating the game that they have all looped the many events of the war over 600 million times.
   = Cinque (Mace): I do not like playing Cinque as she's slow with attacks taking forever to bring out and recover from, but she's pretty awesome to have in the party because she's sometimes able to knock an enemy down or stun them.  Why did they have a tiny little girl wield such a large and heavy weapon anyways?  Cinque's voice makes me laugh.  Her English voice (It's Cristina Vee, I can hear some Noel in the voice) makes her always sound out of it, slow and/or ditsy.  Her Japanese voice makes her sound playful and child-like.  She's the kind of girl who's in her own little world, so that's kind of what they're trying to go for.  I didn't really like playing her, but she had a fun personality and liked her interactions with everyone.  I also like how she gives endearing nicknames to everyone.  Mog=Moglin, Queen=Queenie, Rem=Remski, etc.
   = Sice (Scythe): Loud mouthed and vulgar, Sice is very much a tomboy.  Her attacks kind of go all over the place as she dives forwards when she swings, but I really like the damage behind it.  Her straight-forward, unabashed personality can come off as rude and conceited.  But she shows that she expects a lot out of herself and doesn't want to rely on others.  This still doesn't stop Trey from lecturing her about all the things he knows

   = Seven (Whipblade): Seven looks pretty much like Lightning, but with silver hair rather than pink hair.  Seven has a decent range in attack and damage, and she also can get an ability that has three different elements.  Seven is the big-sister type character.  She's mature and reliable which makes her a popular upperclassmen at the academy.  One interesting thing about Seven's outfit is that she wears spats under her skirt because she often twirls upside-down with her whipblade to attack all around her.
   = Eight (Knuckles): It might be just me, but I feel like Eight didn't have much of a presence within the group.  I did take note of him whenever I used him in fights as he has this one move that lets him continuously punch an enemy as long as he has the energy to keep doing it.  Personality wise, I feel like he was the most forgettable.
   = Nine (Spear): Nine is brash, hot-headed, and dumb, yet I like him so much.  If I were to choose who the most memorable male character was from the original 12, it'd be Nine.  With the Japanese voice, he's the stereotypical meathead who wants things simple and would much rather fight things out rather than negotiate.  With the English voice, he's an awkward dude who can barely speak correctly saying "hey" and "yo" a lot and it's entertaining to watch any scene he has a speaking role in.  I mean, who even talks like that?

He has pretty good burst damage and defense which helps when you're left with ranged units that need protection.
   = Jack (Katana): I didn't like Jack at first.  With his weapon out, he has the slowest walk in the game.  But then I thought of it in Monster Hunter terms and sheathed my Katana whenever I wasn't close enough and then attack to bring it out when I was in range.  After doing this and utilizing dodge more often, he quickly became my favorite melee character to play.  He has high damage and can quickly counter after dodging out of the way.  He has a unique style of play that was a bit more challenging but satisfying.  Jack is the class clown of Class Zero and is full of optimism.  His easy going attitude is a nice contrast to every else who seems to be a lot more serious other than Cinque.
   = Queen (Longsword): Queen is the studious and intelligent one of Class Zero.  She emanates a sort of elegance that matches her cool and collected mind.  It's strange that her weapon is a Longsword when her stance and style of fighting matches those who wield rapiers.  She's fast and can quickly close the distance which makes her a good duelist and for taking out multiple weaker units.
   = King (Dual Handguns): He's the strong silent type but is very manly when speaking.  He can be pretty useful against close to mid-range enemies that fly or unreachable by melee characters.  It's especially satisfying kicking an enemy down and shooting them while they're on the floor.
   = Machina Kunagiri (Twin Rapiers): They did a very poor job developing this character.  There was quite a focus on this character in how he changes, how he grows, his relationship with the rest of the characters, but they were all so abrupt and scripted that he ended up being one of the most hated characters of the cast.  In terms of combat, he was nice to have around to take down enemies with large health pools.  But as a character in the story, he didn't quite seem realistic and his motives were confusing.  Half way through the game, he disappears and isn't even playable on main missions.
  = Rem Tokimiya (Twin Daggers): Much like Machina, she was supposed to have a big role in the story.  But she was a rather boring character.  Even worse, she didn't feel particularly strong in combat either.  Her attacks were somewhat fast, but were so weak that it didn't compensate for it.  At the very least, she was the "kind girl" who watched out for everyone with Machina in particular.  So she wasn't a character I could really hate.

   = Kurasame Susaya: The Commanding Officier of Class Zero.  When he was introduced, he demonstrated his experience and abilities when Nine, Cater and Ace attacked him while he had total control over the situation without a bit of hesitation.  It shows how powerful he was and that he's really "cool".  Other than one other scene where he shows concern over the members of Class Zero, there were no other mentions of his character that would make the player understand who he was, why he's important and powerful, and his impact with the rest of Class Zero.  When he was sent out to battle, all he did was sacrifice his power for the l'cie to summon an eidolon (really strong entity) and that was the end of his character.  What I found out was that there is a manga that tells the whole story of his time at the academy, his contributions to the nation, the comrades he lost, and the sacrifices he made to led him to become the "Ice Reaper".  He was a really cool character that was entirely overlooked in the game.

+ Music: The main theme had a nice melody that was memorable, but it's played in over a dozen different variations throughout the game.  Overall, the music was pretty good and it was a pivotal element to the entire experience of the game.  It's definitely not as memorable as the music from other Final Fantasy games, but I enjoyed it and it brought out the atmosphere and immersion of the game.

+ The School Theme: The setting of the game being set in a school was done in Final Fantasy 8 and I really liked it in that game as well.  It was somewhat nostalgic of FF8 to see the characters be part of a school with other students, instructors, and such.  It felt welcoming and familiar to come back to the school grounds after each mission and finding new events around the campus.

+ Combat: In all honesty, combat wasn't that great yet I enjoyed it so much.  Setting up my party, choosing specific builds for my characters, and fighting off waves of enemies in real-time was a nice change in pace from the other Final Fantasy games.  And since there's 14 characters to play, it never felt too repetitive.

+ Voice Acting: This is probably not a good thing, but I enjoyed how bad the English voice acting was.  Having learned what it's like for voice actors who work on localized games, I can't blame them specifically for a lot of the bad voice acting.  A lot of lines in the game don't feel like they have the correct contextual situation in mind when they're delivered which is common in a lot of localized games when voice actors are given the script but not the situation.  This ends up with the English voice overs having some interesting results such as each character's personality exaggerated through their voices.  The Japanese voices are quite stereotypical of each of their respective characters, so it matches up pretty well.  So with the Japanese voices, it's not as entertaining, but it's certainly more believable thus more immersive.

+ Cinematics: Although the game was originally released on PSP, all the major cinematics that weren't in-game scripting were pre-rendered clips created in order to have PS3-like quality to them.  During these Cinematics, movements were natural, voice acting were (usually) contextually correct, and the moments had impact.  This is quite a difference from the in-game dialogues and scripted motions that looked awkward and jarring.  The best Cinematics that held a lot of meaning was the very beginning and the very end of the game.

+ Humor/Dark Themes: With the way the game started out, I didn't expect much humor.  But there are many moments that were so awkward or out of place that it's hard not to laugh (like anything that Nine says in English voice).  There were moments in the game where the darker themes felt like it held weight and meaning behind the story, and yet so much of the game's story and character development was such a mess that it didn't do it well enough.  The few events where it did have impact left an impression on me.

+ The "What-if" Ending: Even though this is the fake ending, it was cute and fun.  I loved it so much.  This ending showed what the lives of Class Zero would be like if there weren't a war going on and they got to enjoy their school lives.  This makes it that much more harder to accept the true ending.


[Cons of the game/Things I did not like]
- Free Time: I actually liked the "Free Time" the first few times I had to go through it.  You get to talk to your fellow schoolmates and see different events that ranged from informative, to funny, to sometimes being a waste of time.  As the game goes on, there are less events to trigger and a lot more side quests you can do.  These side quests were probably meant to get the player to go out and earn some levels; however, they were long, boring, and tedious without the rewards to compensate for them.  Free Time became a waste of time and I ended up going straight to main missions after triggering all the events.

- Side Quests: As I mentioned, side quests just didn't feel worth the time and effort to do.  I did all the side quests the first few times and realized how long it took to do them while not really being properly rewarded for them for the time I spent on them.  It certainly felt like filler/padding to extend the time spent on the game and it just wasn't that fun.

- Conquering missions: I didn't expect to see a game of tower defense in an Action-RPG, but there it was.  You choose one character to move around the overworld and lead your army into the opposing faction's city to weaken its defenses before invading it.  It's a tedious process that requires you getting knocked down over and over again.  It's clunky, boring and annoying.

- Slow and abrupt pacing: Perhaps it's because it was originally developed for the PSP, but cinematics and events tend to fade in and out a lot of scenes.  When it's not doing that, the narration for the story is long winded and boring.  It's trying hard to drive home the idea of "war is bad and everyone is affected" and it loses its audience through the droning of narration rather than just showing it through action or gameplay (like the beginning cinematic of Izana dying.  That was powerful and had meaning).

- Lazy on story details: I had a similar complaint to Final Fantasy XIII when I read all the notes in-game and thought that the notes did a better job at telling the story than the game itself.  That should never be the case for a videogame.  At the very least, FF13's story was easy to understand even if it was told poorly.  With FF Type-0, the story details are cryptic and sometimes never mentioned in game and can only be known to those who read everything from the notes.  And even then, character development is non-existent for some which led to some dumb moments.

- No connection to characters: I did say I liked the characters, but unfortunately the game didn't really do much for them in terms of character development.  Very little backstory, motives, and changes are given to characters throughout the game which made it difficult to connect with them.  Lots of characters die throughout the game, and yet a lot of times it's hard to really feel sad for them when we barely got to know them at all.  At one point in the game, Class Zero's little merchant girl Aria (who is hostage to the enemy) suddenly has a connection to one of the enemies.  There is no build up to that moment, it just reveals itself and happens.  The player confronts this one enemy multiple times and yet knows little to nothing about him.  He tells Aria to go home and that there will be a lot of fighting and she refuses to go home and tells him not to die.  Just when things are about to end and he was about to retreat from the fight, he finds a bomb near him set by one of his comrades without permission.  He sacrifices himself and prevents the bomb from needlessly killing that much more lives.  It sucks, but who was he?  This happens quite a few times throughout the game and it just felt like cheap moments to try to make it feel deep.

- Level requirement spike: For about 35%-45% of the first half of the game, there is little need to grind for levels in order to get through the main missions.  But at one point of the game, the recommended level spikes up by a large amount.  As I've mentioned before, side-quests are boring and not really worth it.  So the only other options is to either go into the arena to train, have a character go into secret training (and you can use an exploit to level them extremely quickly), or replay a previous main mission in order to level the characters.  But then it presents another problem in the game:

- Leveling characters up: Characters level up individually.  Only three characters can be in the party at a time.  There are 14 characters in the game.  This means you have grind levels for 5 separate groups every time they're under-leveled.  With the amount of levels needed at that difficulty spike in needing higher level characters, it feels like an aggressive waste of time to repeatedly fight the same enemies over and over for hour on end before you can progress the story.

- The last area: Despite over-leveling my characters to avoid any further difficulty in confrontation, the game still decides to throw enemies that take forever to kill with some of them possessing the ability to kill you in two hits should the 2nd hit land shortly after the first one.  I was well over 10 levels above the enemies and still took quite a bit of time to take down each enemy across the two dozen rooms laid out at the last area.

- The last boss: As if the game didn't waste enough of your time already, the last boss goes on with his soliloquy as your characters stumble around with the little bit of strength they have left to fight and overpowered gargantuan of a monster as it takes a swing at them every once in a while to take them out of their misery.  After everyone falls in battle, another cinematic takes place and then each member is revived and controlled by the player.  Each of those characters can't be killed and can continue to attack the monster until they take a set amount of health away before getting knocked out and switched out with another character.  This process takes a LONG time as the boss is level 99.  Even with invincibility, the characters can still be knocked around.  It wasn't fun, it didn't have the dramatic effect that I'm sure they were going for when they designed this, and I did not feel satisfied after beating it.

- The True Ending: I don't think there was ever a more painful ending to watch from a Final Fantasy game than this one (except Crisis Core, everyone keeps mentioning, but I haven't played it yet).  Much like the opening cinematic of the game, the graphics are pre-rendered and it looked really nice.  The motions were more natural and the quality of the voice acting was much better (although it was still not very good in English).  Also like the opening cinematic, it felt very real and meaningful as the twelves characters that I got to know and love are now facing the reality that they're dying from the damage done to their phantoma (kind of like their soul).  They all begin to cry and share each other's sorrow.  As that happens, Ace sings a song that calms everyone down.  They didn't want to be sad and start imaging what life after the war would be like now that it's over.  They laugh and smile as they wonder what kinds of places they can visit and things they can learn making for a hopeful future.  As the credits roll, Machina and Rem burst through the classroom doors and find their former comrades and friends had already passed as they lay next to each other next to their weapons erected with their capes attached flailing to the wind like a flag.  It was such a painful moment and the biggest slap in the face was the Machina survived.  I can't say that the ending was bad, but it made me feel bad.  It was a sad conclusion as it did off one of the main things I liked about the game: the 12 main members of Class Zero.


Despite it all, I'm glad I played through the game.  It's definitely not one I could recommend and not a game I want to play again any time soon.  But still, I'm glad they localized it and I got to play through it.

Recovering and Cloud Hype

The past 3 weeks have been pretty awful.  On Tuesday, three weeks ago, I was experiencing frequent heart palpitation (skipping) throughout the day.  On Wednesday, of which I wrote an entry that day, the heart palpitation was at its worst with heavy skipping, dizziness, fatigue, nausea, blurry vision, constant hunger, and a bad headache.  I continued each passing day with problems and then on Sunday that week, my father looked up my symptoms and found that they all led to hypoglycemia (low blood sugar).  I realized I've been avoiding sugar for a while since I thought it was the cause of my stomach problems.  I've also been staying up late a lot without eating in-between the night which lowers blood sugar.  Whether I really was low on blood sugar is unknown, but my condition improved the following week when I was regulating my sugar count.  But I was still having trouble maintaining my hunger.  I had to eat more food and more meals a day.  I went to see the doctor which I had made an appointment with over a month ago for a body check up since I haven't had one in 10 years.  After checking with a blood test and my physical check up, the doctor said I was healthy and that I should be fine.  That was just this past Friday when I went to see him again to review my blood test results.  It seems I've been suffering from anxiety as well.  By that point, the main problems I had left was always feeling hungry with a lot of gas generating and occurrences of heart palpitation whenever I was hungry or stressed.  The doctor gave me a prescription for Omeprazole to regulate my stomach acids so that I won't constantly feel hungry throughout the day and stop it from creating so much air (which made me feel sick).  So the past 3 weeks, it's been a roller coaster ride of feeling okay and feeling miserable.  I generally feel a bit sick in the morning, then good during the day, and then awful again by evening.  Yesterday, I felt pretty good throughout the entire day until night time.  I felt so good that I did some recording for my remix project.  Today, I've had some occurrences of heart palpitation again because the feeling of hunger won't go away for some reason.  It's leading to a slight headache.  I also have random body pains throughout my abdomen, arms and legs.  It might be a culmination of stressed pent up from the past 3 weeks.  But I'm slowly feeling okay again.  I really don't want to experience the past 3 weeks ever again.  I wasn't bedridden or anything, but I felt so abnormal and nauseated that I couldn't work, couldn't play games, couldn't do anything except watch videos.  I tried playing games, but I felt nauseated after a short while.  Watching videos allowed my mind to be distracted from all the maladies I've been suffering from.  I started playing games again yesterday since I was feeling better.  I've been mostly watching videos from Cinemassacre, some Super Smash videos, and a lot of reaction videos to Cloud's reveal in Super Smash Bros.


If I could contain the emotion and feelings I had when they revealed Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII to Super Smash Bros. in a bottle where I could open it and experience it all over again, I would do it and use it every time I felt disappointed or lacked excitement for videogames.  This trailer was revealed at the end of the Nintendo Direct stream on November 12, 2015.  I watched the 45-minute broadcast feeling mostly unimpressed as a lot of the updates weren't that exciting, announcements were further discussing games they've already revealed, or the new surprises they showed didn't get much of a reaction from me (such as Zelda: Twilight Princess HD on Wii U or Linkle as a new character, although I think she is very cute).  So when it got to the end of the broadcast and Reggie says he "senses a trailer approaching", I was thinking "ooo, new game?"  And then it started with the first three notes from the opening of Final Fantasy VII's bombing mission and I'm thinking "are they bringing the FF7 remake to Nintendo NX?"  It was a very similar reaction to this year's reveal of the Final Fantasy VII remake when I heard the first note from Advent Children in the trailer where I went "Oh hey, it's Final Fantasy VII".  And then all of a sudden, the logo for "Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Wii U" showed up and I freaked out going "NO WAY, ARE THEY REALLY GOING TO DO IT?!"  And then I saw the "x Final Fantasy VII" logo pop-up.  I fell over on the couch screaming "OMG, THEY'RE ACTUALLY DOING IT!"  By the time it revealed Cloud's name, I was already sobbing and awestruck with the news right in front of me.  FREAKING CLOUD STRIFE IN SUPER SMASH BROS.!  This was something I talked and laughed about with my friends back in Super Smash Bros. N64 and how it was "impossible because Final Fantasy VII was on Sony Playstation".  I honestly think this made me happier than the Final Fantasy VII Remake reveal.  And just in time too since I'll be (trying) to get a Nintendo Wii U this week bundled with Super Smash Bros. and Splatoon.  The following week after the announcement, I ended up watching a lot of reaction videos to see if anyone was as excited as I was.  I never watch reaction videos because I find them mostly silly.  But seeing the raw emotion coming from Final Fantasy fans has been wonderful.  What I didn't expect is some very negative reactions from fans of Smash Bros.  Comments like "Who's that?", "No, not Cloud, why him?!", or "Ewww, Final Fantasy?" weren't as rare as I thought.  I was reminded that there were a lot of people that didn't like Cloud.  I can understand why so many people didn't like Cloud for the same reasons people don't like Sasuke from Naruto, but I've always admired the character design of Cloud wielding his iconic Buster Sword.  Anyways, here's some of my favorite reaction videos to the reveal of Cloud in Smash Bros.:


(Timestamp: 45:24)
(Timestamp: 44:35)

This is probably my favorite reaction.
EDIT: Just found this

(Timestamp: 1:46) We can't even joke about this anymore BECAUSE IT'S REAL!

In any case, I hope to make a 100% recovery in time to play some Nintendo Wii U and work on some more remixes along the way.

Let's talk about the Final Fantasy XIII Series (SPOILERS!)

So I completed Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII last night and now I feel great!  It was just finishing the game, but completing a journey of wondering what the game was about all these years.  I first heard about Final Fantasy XIII back in 2006 when it was announced at E3 and I thought it would never come out.  When it finally released, I bought it on the first week it came out and played 15 minutes of it.


But then I had to go back to school away from home and didn't touch it for years.  Final Fantasy XIII-2 eventually came out, but I was less excited since I didn't even play through the first one.  I eventually bought it when it dropped down to $15.


And then Lightning Returns was announced and I got super excited as I saw the change in the combat system and how open-ended the game was.  It was pretty, exciting, different and I totally wanted it.

So with the end of the trilogy releasing its last installment this year, I decided to finally get through the series.  To make short of what I thought: the first game I hated a lot of things but still enjoyed it; the 2nd I thought was an impressive adventure with a really good presentation that lacked in terms of gameplay; and the last one felt much weaker in overall story but was probably the most entertaining one which had the best ending and made me forgive everything the series had fault in.  The ending for Lightning Returns wraps up the entire trilogy in a way I felt very content with.  It was so good that I thought very differently about the entire series.  Because of that, I want to dissect the series a little.


Graphics & Music
I'm just going to go through with this because it's the easiest to talk about.  I don't think there really is a need to point out how magnificent the graphics to the entire series was.  The environment, the animation, character models, effects, level design aesthetic and overall presentation is simply the best the videogame industry has to offer.  The music might not have been Nobuo Uematsu, but it played a pivotal role in creating such a magical experience with some unique flavor in the last 2 installments.  There are some songs throughout the series that were so good that I kept listening to them over and over:


The first one had a lot of nice acoustic tracks with various styles of music such as Bossa Nova, orchestrated, Blues, etc.  It did have some more upbeat songs such as Sunleth Waterscape (song above).  The 2nd game had a wide variety of music stretching far into metal and electronic music.  They wanted music that players normally wouldn't hear in a game for the 2nd one for a unique experience.  I thought it was very effective and worked really well.  And the 3rd expanded into all sorts of genres and revisit a lot of music from the first two games (although, the 2nd game also revisits music from the 1st as well).  Whatever faults the Final Fantasy XIII series might have, no one can really deny the quality and presentation of the game's graphics and audio (some might argue about the voice acting, but that's something I'm not going to get into).


Gameplay
The number one complaint I heard about the series (at least for the first two games) was how linear the exploration was and how incredibly boring the combat system felt.  These two topics are due to the initial impression players got from the first game.  The first 10 chapters of the first game felt like one huge tutorial and consisted of maps that lead from point A to point B with a few branched off paths to collect items.  It wasn't until Chapter 11 where the player was presented with a gigantic map where they can freely take up quests and fulfill them in an open-world environment.  And then if they go past that optional part of the map, they go right back to a linear path.  The combat consisted of switching between roles for the characters and pressing "accept" for "Auto-attack".  Not to mention that you only control one out of three of the characters in the party.  Put them together and you essentially have a game where you walk forward and press "accept/confirm" throughout the entire game.  The complaints on Lightning Returns were a little different.  Breaking free from a linear gameplay, Lightning Returns is ENTIRELY open-world and open-ended where the player can take on any quest in any area in any order they want.  The complaint for this one is the time-limit and time-sensitive quests was annoying and limiting for those who wanted to 100% the game, a lot of quests were mundane and required a lot of backtracking, and some felt that combat wasn't too different from the first two games.  Here's how I felt on each of the games:

[Final Fantasy XIII]
Okay, yes, exploration was dumb in this game because they were all hallway simulators; however, I....kinda liked it....I've played over a few hundred games the past few years and there were many that had level designs that didn't make sense, were convoluted, and constantly got me lost.  So it was kind of refreshing not having to worry about getting lost, missing an item that I didn't collect, or figuring out where to go next.  I just moved on forward and faced whatever I needed to overcome to progress.  It did get boring after a while and it was a nice change in pace when I got to the open-world area in Chapter 11, but I didn't really feel like it was something I'd complain about.

I also kind of liked the combat system, but not entirely.  The auto-attack system is so smart that it chooses the correct attacks and element for you once you've learned what an enemy is weak and strong against.  So it was kind of unnecessary to ever choose your own attacks and abilities unless you were buffing and healing.  This made it kind of boring.  What I did like was the paradigm shift mechanic.  Having to plan out which characters excelled which roles, mixing and matching the party, and switching between the roles mid-fight made it a lot more interactive with the fights than most past Final Fantasy games.  Because if you really think about it, the player still mashes "accept" on "attack" for most FF games unless it's a boss.  You're still doing the same thing in FF13, but you also need to switch between roles depending on the situation.  It definitely felt casual friendly with the "Auto-Attack" doing all the decisions for the player, but the fast pace in turn-based fights and paradigm shift mechanic kept me interested long enough to make FF13 somewhat enjoyable.

[Final Fantasy XIII-2]
I have mixed feelings about the exploration in this game.  It's more open-ended than Final Fantasy XIII, but it requires a lot of running back and forth.  Despite having the same battle mechanics as FFXIII, I didn't like it as much in this one (which I'll get into more detail) so I avoided fighting even more for this one.  The music for the game was really good though, so traveling around the maps wasn't THAT bad.  There was a lot of variety in environments for this iteration which made the game feel less slower than the first one as the scenery changed more often and more quickly.  It was interesting traveling back and forth between time and seeing the same areas change.  Exploration did feel like it had more purpose than the first one, but it was kind of annoying running back and forth sometimes.

So why do I dislike the combat system in this installment when it's the same one as the first one?  The first one had 6 characters to choose from which distinct combat abilities.  Lightning was a balanced character with possibly being the best Medic, Snow was the best Sentinel, Hope was the best Ravager, Sazh was the best Synergist, Fang was the best Commando, and Vanille was the best Saboteur.  In FFXIII-2, you have Noel as the best Commando and Serah as the best Ravager.  Those two never leave the party and the 3rd slot is filled by a friendly monster that you capture.  Because Noel and Serah doesn't switch out, the variety in party builds are extremely limited and boring.  You also had to go out hunting the best monsters to get the most out of your party capabilities.  Furthermore, the monsters don't level with you!  The player has to find or buy items to feed the monster in order for them to level up.  The items are extremely expensive and the the monsters level up very slowly.  It might seem like it adds a lot of options to party builds since you get to choose from a whole list of enemies, but most of them you won't ever touch.  I don't like the combat system as much because of this.  There were also quick-time events, ew.  There is one new mechanic that I did like though.  When an enemy appears on the map, you can attack them and gain an advantage such has receiving a haste buff at the beginning of the battle.  This mechanic was carried over to Lightning Returns as well.  So although FFXIII-2 had the best story and music (in my opinion), it had the worst combat experience out of the three games.  By the way, the very last boss for FFXIII-2 took me 46 minutes to beat since I practically rushed FFXIII-2 and was under-leveled.  That was painfully long...

[Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII]
To break free from the linear level design and gameplay, the developers decided to make an entirely open-world and open-ended experience where the player can choose to do any quest in any order so long as they're available.  Exploration was definitely the best in this installment as little secrets are hidden throughout the world and there's a lot to do.  It is kind of annoying running back and forth sometimes, but it's nothing like old-school World of Warcraft or the Elder Scrolls series where you're walking forever to reach your destination.  There's also key points that the player can warp to.

Lightning Returns is definitely my favorite out of the three in terms of gameplay.  The combat system is kind of what I wanted since the first FFXIII where it was more action-orientated with more control over the character's action.  The player can actively block or dodge out of attacks, execute spells on the spot, chain attacks together, and move around.  I spent a lot of time mixing and matching outfits, weapons, shields, skills and abilities and figuring out strengths and advantages that can be put together in conjunction with the other builds.  The stagger system is still there, but a little different in how it works since you only have one character instead of three this time around.  The combat is flashy, a lot more involving, and a whole lot of fun.  What I didn't like was after I finish the main quests, the flow of the game came to a halt as the only things left to do were side-quests and mini-quests with a majority of them being very mundane tasks.  If it weren't for the fact that I have such a large backlog to get through, I wouldn't mind going through the game once more in New Game+ because I seriously had a lot of fun with the combat in this game.


Linearity
Final Fantasy XIII: Chapter 1-10, 12, 13 = Yep; Chapter 11 = Have fun grinding~
Final Fantasy XIII-2: In the beginning, a little.  After that, have fun exploring!
Lightning Returns FFXIII: HAVE FUN!  Oh what?  Too open-ended?  Not sure where to go?


Story
When I heard they were making two more sequels to follow up Final Fantasy XIII, I thought the developers were crazy.  Critics might have given FFXIII praises, but there seemed to be a lot of fans and non-fans of the FF series that did not like FFXIII and didn't want to see anymore of it.  When I finished the first FFXIII, it felt like a complete game.  There was a beginning, middle, and end and I was happy for it.  No cliff hangers or anything like that.  So when I started up FFXIII-2 and realized that things had changed and that the ending of the first one wasn't true anymore, I felt like it was an excuse to create these two sequels.  Maybe it was, but man did they do a great job of it.  The story for FFXIII-2 might seem like it threw out everything you knew about FFXIII with a convoluted twist to the whole series' plot, but when you figure everything out and put it together it's actually mind-blowing on how good it is.  FFXIII-2 definitely ended with a cliff-hanger that made the anticipation for Lightning Returns all the more painful for those who wanted to find out how it all ends.  Luckily for me, I played all three in a row.  I thought the story was okay for the first one as it was poorly presented to the player.  It made much more sense when reading through the datalogs, but it's a very boring way to find out the story.  The 2nd one had the best overall story to tell and I liked it the most.  There isn't a strong story to tell in the 3rd one as it's more of an adventure experience that finally wraps up everything in the entire series at the end.

[Final Fantasy XIII]
So it's actually kind of difficult to explain the story of FFXIII without being long-winded, so I'm going to try to not using as many esoteric terms as possible.  In the beginning of the game, Lightning is seen riding a train to find her sister.  The other characters all have their own motives and meetings with each other but they all seem to end up at the same place to meet Serah.  In their world, there are greater beings that rule over humans.  If those beings mark a human, they become a servant of that greater being and must carry out the duty entrusted to them or end up being a mindless monster.  If they fulfill their task, they turn into crystal and are preserved until they one day awaken again.  All those around Serah get marked and are tasked with turning into a great beast to destroy their home world "Cocoon", an artificial sphere floating above the planet "Gran Pulse".  So the whole game is about the 6 characters defying their task and fate as well as the higher beings to gain back control over their lives, to free Serah from her Crystal state, and to save Cocoon.  All the characters have some sort of relation or reason for meeting each other which causes conflict and turmoil between the group.  They face all sorts of difficulties and find forgiveness between themselves and each other so that they can go through with facing the impossible.  It's a nice and simple story that seems very effective, except it was told very poorly.  Reflecting upon the story of the first game, it was really solid.  But it was masked over by awkward dialogues, annoying character motive and reactions, and it lacked reason for the player to really care.  I liked the story, but I hated the way it was presented to me.

[Final Fantasy XIII-2]
At the end of FFXIII, Serah and Dajh (Sazh's son) is freed from their crystal state, Fang and Vanille become Crystal again to hold up Cocoon in the air high above Gran Pulse, and Serah is reunited with her beloved sister once more.  But in the beginning of FFXIII-2, Lightning is seen donning a warrior outfit fighting in the name of the goddess Etro against an unfamiliar man of great stature and ability.  A young hunter named Noel falls into the place Lightning was fighting and is quickly rescued before falling to the ground.  Lightning asks Noel to bring the only person she truly trusts, which is Serah, to the place they're at.  Noel goes through a portal and ends up where Serah is, but not without bringing a ton of other monsters and mysteries with him through the portal.  The player then finds out two major things: Reality was altered and Lightning did not come back with the other 5 members at the ending of FFXIII, yet Serah is the only one who remember her being there and giving her blessing to her and Snow to be married; Noel is the last human being on the planet in the future and has gone back in time to change the outcome of that future.  With that established, the player realizes that the portals transcends both time and space.  So both Noel and Serah journeys through different time lines and even alternate realities to guide the world to one where life still continues and not one of extinction.  I found the story to be a lot more interesting than the first one because it was so unpredictable and the concept of space-time continuum shifts and parallel alternate realities really interested me.  As the story progresses, Noel and Serah meet a young girl that looks exactly like someone Noel knows but isn't the same person.  Much of the story revolves around this girl and how the main antagonist, who is fighting Lightning at the beginning of the game, wants to "save" her.  Noel and Serah seems to have stopped the antagonist, and the future seemed bright.  But then things happen, Serah dies, and the world is plunged into darkness as it slowly meets its end.  All these foreboding events setting up for Lightning Returns.  And if you get the true ending to the game, you would see that the main antagonist has been pulling the strings to everything, even the events of the first game.

[Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII]
So the main antagonist in Final Fantasy XIII-2 killed the goddess of time, Etro.  Because of that, time has stopped and the unseen realm of the Chaos is unleashed upon the world.  People stopped aging but can still die of illness and accidents.  500 years after the events of Final Fantasy XIII-2, which ends at 500 years after FFXIII, the world is ending as the cloud of darkness from the Chaos starts to consume the entire planet.  Lightning is released from her Crystal prison and is summoned by the world's god Bhunivelze to serve as a savior to gather all the souls to bring into the new world.  Bhunivelze knows that the world is no longer salvageable and can't be saved, so he decided to build a new world and bring the souls of the living to it.  Bhunivelze promises to bring back Serah from the clouds of Chaos and reunite her with Lightning if she does everything he set out for her.  Lightning then travels around the world to save as many souls as possible by fulfilling wishes and desires.  She meets many familiar faces and faces many unfamiliar ones.  Lightning Returns doesn't necessarily have a strong overall story.  But it's quite the adventure as Lightning tries to save humanity, one person at a time.  Along the way, Lightning learns more about herself and the intentions of those around her only to find out that Bhunivelze was using her to create a world he deemed fit.  As such, all the souls of dead were planned on being destroyed with the memories of them gone from those of the living.  This included Serah, which is why Lightning and her friends decide to defy a higher being once again.  The ending then wraps up all loose ends and ends the trilogy.  As a bonus point, players who get the secret ending to Lightning Returns sees Lightning get off a train as if starting a new adventure.  The series started with Lightning getting on a train, and then it ends with her getting off one.  One adventure has come to an end, but another one begins.

[Overall Story of Final Fantasy XIII series]
When you put the entire series together and look at the story, it's quite a grand adventure that the characters journey through.  They faced a greater being and power against impossible odds to change their fates and free themselves from the shackles of their former masters.  Then they traveled through time and space to save a ruined world of extinction only to unleash a power that would end the world for good.  But in doing so, they reveal an even greater power that governs all that is on the planet who takes no interest in human will, interest, or beliefs.  As long as the world He created was to his liking, he was willing to do which included destroying all life and memories of the past.  They thwart God's plan and guided all the souls to the new world to be reborn and start life again.  No longer will humans be governed by Gods or higher beings.  Humans themselves will govern themselves, for better or worse.  All of this didn't dawn on me until last night when I finally finished Lightning Returns and reflected upon the entirety of the story.


Characters
There's a lot to say about the characters, but I'll keep it short.  Essentially, the game doesn't do a very good job of show casing the characters.  Their personality feels so scripted and their motives are unreasonable.  It was difficult to relate to the characters or even care about them.  But when you step back and take a look at them based on their adventures and how they change, they're actually not THAT bad.  I feel like a lot more could have been done for character development, but it never really reached there.  I eventually warmed up to the characters as they've become familiar faces in the series, but I still don't think they have enough depth to them.

[Lightning]
Also known as Claire Farron (yup, she has a real name).  I didn't really like her, much like many others that played the first game, because her character was so flat.  She lacked personality.  She's presented as a hardened soldier and took action rather than talking it out, but it felt so forced and awkward.  It isn't until many hours later that you learn more about Lightning.  She lost her parents at the age of 15 and only had Serah, her only sister, left in her life.  With those circumstances, Claire took up the name "Lightning" to toughen her image so that she can protect Serah; however, her cold demeanor strained the relationship between them.  She often hides her emotions but reveals them when someone calls out on how she really felt.  It was then that I realized she was a "tsundere".  That's when I started liking her a bit more.  But it wasn't until she opened up to the character Hope and showed that she cared for him (much like a mother would) that I accepted her as a character.  She faces the most difficult tasks in the series as she was marked by the fal'cie in the first game, the guardian of Etro in the second, and the servant of Bhunivelze in the 3rd.  She is always facing impossible challenges and wants to bear them alone, but then realizes she must open up her heart and call for help (finally works together with everyone in FFXIII, asks for Serah's help in FFXIII-2, and cried out for help at the very end of Lightning Returns when she was stuck in the Chaos).  I can see the developers made it their mission to create a strong female protagonist, and I feel like they achieved it at the end.  I liked her character development and the changes she went through.

[Serah Farron]
Lightning's sister and Snow's fiancée, she becomes a crystal in the beginning of FFXIII and asks them to save Cocoon.  I actually really liked Serah's character right from the get go of FFXIII-2 when a lot of people actually hate the fact that she and Noel were the main characters for the game rather than focusing on previous characters within the series.  Many complained that she was a weak character with little development and little personality.  I disagree as she was the most natural and most human-like character out of the whole cast.  You don't really get to see much of Serah in FFXIII.  But right in the beginning of FFXIII-2, the player immediately sees that she's a sensitive girl who cared about those around her.  She cried when reality was altered and her sister wasn't there anymore and no one remembers the original reality.  You can see she wants to be brave and is still worried when Snow decided to go out to look for Lightning, having to leave Serah.  Then she is described as a strict but kind teacher for the kids of where she lives.  She's a warm and playful girl who consistently shows courage throughout the game as long as there was someone that needed help.  Then she starts seeing premonitions much like the character Yeul was.  Despite seeing her own death, she still went through with all the events leading up to her death.  She wasn't a battle hardened character like everyone else in the game, but she braved through every challenge and showed courage.  She showed strength through her weakness, and that was something that made me really respect her character.

[Snow Villiers]
Snow is sort of an emotional mess, and kind of a "meh" character in the beginning.  He's charismatic and a bit too laid back.  As leader of the resistance group "NORA", he tries to save those who were going to be purged.  Those who were saved wanted to fight alongside NORA, one being Hope's mother Nora.  With the incident that caused the bridge to collapse which led to the death of many volunteers and Hope's mother, Snow held the burden and guilt of not being able to protect them.  He's seen as stupidly optimistic and keeping the morale up.  He's thick-headed, stubborn, and inapprehensible.  It isn't until he starts breaking down that his character starts to kind of make sense.  He takes the blame for not being able to save Serah, Hope's mother, and all others around him.  He knows he's powerless in those instances, but he doesn't want to fall to despair and only wants to look forward towards hope for a better future.  He is filled with doubt multiple times throughout the series, but there always seems to be someone there to remind him who he is and what he represents to the group.  Even in Lightning Returns when he finally threw in the towel and gave up all hope, he is reminded that he's still needed.  His charisma and optimism lifts the spirit of those around him.  He's the kind of guy that will watch your back and take care of you, no matter what.

[Hope Estheim]
THE WORST CHARACTER IN THE FIRST GAME!  Hope probably has the most character development and changes the most throughout the entire series, BUT MAN WAS HE ANNOYING IN THE MAJORITY OF THE FIRST ONE!  A young boy who loses his mother due to her volunteering to help the resistance group fight back, Hope Estheim whined and complained how Snow was responsible for the loss of his mother.  Perhaps that's a natural response, but the way he responds in the game just felt so off and awkward.  All throughout the game, he keeps saying he's going to kill Snow.  Then he blames Snow for getting him involved as a marked one for the higher beings.  This was due to his motive to kill Snow and thus followed him.  Hope was such an unreasonable character.  What the developers wanted to capture was how Hope was very much a child in the beginning of the game and how he develops into a mature young man.  He's powerless and lacked courage.  He eventually follows Lightning at one point when Lightning went off on her own so that he can toughen up and become stronger.  He finally comes to reason with himself and realizes that killing Snow wasn't going to bring his mother, make him feel better, or solve anything.  He eventually becomes a voice of reason and of hope (thus his name) as he suggests plans and ideas to the group later on in the game.  And then he's seen again in FFXIII-2 as a young man and a genius at that.  He's mature, calm and collected, and full of confidence.  He was great in FFXIII-2, and that carried over to Lightning Returns pretty well except for the fact that he looks like his younger self again.  In the end, Hope was the one that saves Lightning.  But man, you cannot believe how much I hate him in the beginning.  In the end, he became one of my favorites since he had the most character development and changes and turned into a character I could appreciate.  Also, he was the strongest ravager in the first installment in the group and helped me get through the hardest enemies.

[Sazh Katzroy]
Sazh was kind of the comic relief character in FFXIII, but not nearly enough of that was seen in FFXIII-2 and LR.  He was also the voice of logic and reason which contrasted all the crazy things everyone else in the group did.  Lightning tells him to jump off the train and he says that's crazy.  The group says fight and he said it might not be such a good idea but they do it anyway.  The group says someone needs to fly, and he says he's not sure about this.  Despite being the voice of reason and sounding pessimistic a lot of the times, he is also shown smiling a lot and joking all the time.  And even though he tries to reason with the others, he'll still follow whatever crazy things they'll do to back them up.  He's also shown as a loving father.  There isn't much development on Sazh as he sort of stays kind of the same character with two occassions where he was very serious and depressed: once in FFXIII when he finds out how his son was marked by the higher beings, and the 2nd time in LR where Lightning finds him secluded away from all signs of life with his son in a deep slumber he won't wake out of.  It was kind of strange in LR that Sazh doesn't react to Lightning's presence after 500 years.  They finally show a bit of his original personality again once you fulfill the quest.  He was an okay character.

[Oerba Dia Vanille]
Vanille is a strange character.  She changes accents multiple times throughout the series, she starts off annoyingly peppy and happy and then ends up being depressing throughout the rest of the series, and she progresses very little as a character.  Her "character" is essentially the one who is overly cheerful.  But then three things happen that changes her character entirely.  She lost her memory of what happened before she went into Crystal form the first time around and couldn't figure out what was bothering her.  The game eventually reveals that she's responsible for getting Serah marked, Dajh marked, and killing a bunch of people when she turned into the beast "Ragnarok" the first time she was marked.  Because of all these events, she is filled with guilt to the point of constant depression for the rest of the series.  She's there to cheer people up a few times (FFXIII) and reach out to them when they're lost (FFXIII-2), but then she still feels guilty and tries to find atonement (LR).  Sad to say, but she probably has the weakest character development.  She gets so depressed that you kind of wish she was annoyingly cheerful again.

[Oerba Yun Fang]
Fang probably has one of the strongest personalities in the game.  She's a tough and very determined character who is shown to have a semi-laid back manner while still talking like she's getting down to business.  She's very protective of Vanille and even lied about being the one who turned into Ragnarok and killing all those people.  She's brimming with confidence and can be curt when speaking.  But she's always been very honest unless it was to protect someone.  She even took a slap from Lightning and asked her if that made her feel better in a sincere manner and not a mocking one.  The English voice actor did a great job in molding her into a unique character with such a defined personality.  Unfortunately, she doesn't get much character development throughout the series.

[Noel Kreiss]
I like Noel.  He's a pretty cool character.  But I can see why a lot of people disliked his character design since he looks like he just came out of a Kingdom Hearts game.  Noel is a hunter who scavenges the land for food and monsters to slay for food as the time period he comes from, humans are near extinct with him and two others as the last remaining two on the planet.  One dies and the other one mysteriously leaves.  He then travels through space and time to end up where Lightning is only to have her ask him to bring Serah to her.  He travels back in time and joins up with Serah to get her to Lightning while hoping to fix the world so that it doesn't become the ruined wasteland of his timeline.  The game reveals that he knows of the reoccurring character "Yeul" and wants to save the one that he knows as she's the only person he really knows and loves in his timeline.  Throughout the game, there's a lot of things he doesn't know about because of the time he's from and is amazed by all the sights he sees of which he only knows from stories.  He's portrayed as an honest character who wants a future with people in it.  His naivety to the world of the past plays in part with his personality and the kind of character he is.  I'm not sure why people disliked or even hated Noel so much since he has an actual back story, character development, and a realistic personality.


So yes, the Final Fantasy XIII series has a lot of flaws in gameplay, characters, and story telling, but it was an overall enjoyable experience that I don't regret getting into.  I'm looking forward to seeing what Final Fantasy XV holds as it's supposedly in the same universe as XIII unless they changed it.

She Returns!

I realized I never wrote anything on Valentine's Day before!  Well, let me tell you a story:

My date isn't going to be here until tomorrow.  And even when she gets here, I won't be taking her out...yet.  I'm still processing the first encounter and don't even get me started on the 2nd encounter.  At first, I hated her and all her friends.  But after a bit, I started warming up to her and some of her buddies.  I feel really good about this 3rd encounter, though I'm not prepared for it yet.  A lot of people don't seem to like her at all.  I'll give her that chance.  My friends say that it's not worth it.  "She's just an angry, pink-haired tsundere with no personality!"  Maybe it'll be okay.  I kinda like tsunderes!

So yeah, I pre-order Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII for PS3 and it arrives in the mail tomorrow!  I pre-ordered it to get the Yuna and Cloud Strife costumes and because I'm very excited about the game.  But I don't think I'll be able to play it quite just yet.  I FINALLY started playing Final Fantasy XIII and am about 10 hours in (still in the 'process' of finishing the game) and will work towards finishing it and FFXIII-2 (haven't even 'started' it yet) before I actually start Lightning Returns.  With the first 2 hours of Final Fantasy XIII, I immediately hated all the characters.  All the characters are based off emotions.  Lightning is always angry.  Snow bi-polar and changes his emotions on a whim.  Sazh can't finish his sentences as he's dubious on his stance in an argument.  Vanille is way too happy for her own good.  And Hope is the worst out of all of them with being portrayed as weak and helpless while blaming everyone else around him for everything.  With about 10 hours into the game, I'm starting to like Lightning a bit more as she shows some compassion towards the other characters.  I'm hoping I'll warm up to the rest of the cast as I get deeper into the story.  I tried out the demo of Lightning Returns and really liked the combat system as it's a lot more action-orientated and require a lot of cycling through skills.  Sadly, Lightning Returns has the lowest MetaScore out of the FFXIII series by critics and users alike.  Some people didn't like the story or characters, some didn't like the ending, others hated how it's action-orientated and not turn-based, while some just join in on the band-wagon and throw out vague comments such as "it's a boring game".  I really like the character design to Lightning but do think she has a shallow personality from what has been revealed in the first 10 hours of FFXIII so far.  I started liking her a bit more when she started showing some concern or understanding towards the other characters and that's when I realized her character archetype was that of a tsundere.  A Tsundere is a very common character archetype in animé where the character acts cold and/or indifferent to the other characters and ends up being more friendly near the end or in another method, they're resolute and show no compassion in the outside but hints on kindness and understanding in the inside.  I actually didn't know about this until I watched Lucky Star and it pointed out Kagami Hiiragi being a "Tsundere" so often.  That's when I realized I liked a lot of characters that are "tsundere".  I don't think it applies to actual girls in real life though.  So yeah, I'll be going through the FFXIII series this year and hopefully get around to Lightning Returns soon.


Getting back to the topic at hand: it's Valentine's Day and I don't have anything in particular planned.  I'm not disappointed and it's not surprising to have anything happen while I'm in the environment that I'm in.  This is why I've got to get a job outside of this city so I can meet more people!  I don't have anyone to celebrate Valentine's Day with, but that's okay.  Still not in the game industry to work towards my goal, that's not as okay.  I'm more concerned about my ability to get a job right now more than anything and it's something I'm working hard towards.  My portfolio is shaping up nicely and I'll have to do some more editing on my resumé.  In the meantime, I still want to work hard on producing more music and getting better at it.  It's been a pretty productive month so far with more projects lined up for me.  I also started making music for a game one of my friend's is developing for the android market.  In terms of gaming, I'm a bit worried.  I've already spent a lot of money these past 1.5 months into this year and I've already bought more games than I have completed.  I have to be careful about that since I'm more focused on completing specific games rather than large quantities of them.  And most of those specific games take a long time to complete.  Still, because of Valentine's Day, there were a bunch of sales I couldn't possibly ignore.  So I picked up 5 more games today.  Overall, I think the year started off alright so far for me.  I wish I was working out more consistently (been doing 2 times a week instead of 3) and getting work done a lot faster as well as completing games faster, but I realize that I have to pace myself if I want to get anything done.

Have a great and safe Valentine's Day, everyone!

Final Fantasy XI - Crazy Boss Story

Yesterday, I was asked by my dad if I ever heard of "Pandemonium Warden".  I had no idea what that is or "who" it was.  I was actually thinking of a DotA character that looked like a Panda and would occasionally crack a joke about his brewing beer abilities or his self such as "I've got Pandamonium".  Appearently, it's a new boss monster on the Online game "Final Fantasy XI" that was added in the newest update patch.  I never played the game before, but I've played enough online games to know that some boss monsters may take a while to beat sometimes; however, my dad told me that the article he read off of Yahoo reported that a group of players tried taking on the Boss and spent 18 straight hours fighting it before they decided to stop.

The players that played for those 18 hours started getting sick and passing out.  I decided to do a bit of research on it and there really were articles about the infamous boss "Pandemonium Warden".  I apologize to those players that suffer, but I found it amusing that Square-Enix would even do such a thing as to place a boss monster like that in the game.  The quote I see appear all over the internet came from the guild leader of "Beyond the Limitation" and it was quoted:

"People were passing out and getting physically ill. We decided to end it before we risked turning into a horrible new story about how video games ruin people’s lives…. None of us doubt that Pandemonium Warden can be killed. We just call into question exactly what the development team thinks is reasonable from human beings".

I guess they didn't go "Beyond" their "Limitations" but they were very persistant to fight for 18 straight hours.  Can you imagine?  Constant clicking and shouting over the mic to the guild members "we can do it, we can do it!"?  I love playing videogames, but not so much as to dedicate my life to it.  So the point of this article is for me to tell you (mainly my friends that play online games) what my father told me after he read that article "don't you ever do that".  I love epic battles, not epic fails.....

First Comic Post and Handheld Games Preview

[Ragnarok: The World's not over Yet]

It's been a while since I've done a post since I'm trying to make my summer worthwhile with my music, drawing, videos, reading, exercising, and of course playing some videogames.  Anyways, I started a new comic series that I may or may not continue drawing considering how long it took just to do one page, and it isn't even up to par in terms of humor with my other original comic (to those that know of it).  There are only some of those who know I like drawing comics, and so to those that know about my older comics, the drawing on this one page might look a bit similar.  I hope to evolve out of that and become a bit more creative with my art.  Anyways, here it is:

I've been thinking of just doing Ragnarok references in my original comic, but was inspired to start its own series upon hearing my friend Danny's desire to write fanfiction stories of the experiences from the game "Ragnarok Online" on his blog page.  Danny has yet to write any yet considering that he is possibly busier than I am.  I am not completely content with my first page on this series, mainly because it took so long to do with drafting, character design, coloring, scanning and editing; however, I was at the very least able finish one page.  I was thinking on developing a strong storyline with this series, but that all depends if I continue creating it even after I transfer to my new college.  I really want to work on my art, but I also love working on my music, video and game creations (which I would like to do= last game made and finished was probably Junior year High school).  PS: A possibly better view of the comic can be seen within my new album on "Facebook".

[Ipod game - Song Summoner]

An incredibly intriguing game that came out recently for the Ipod called "Song Summoner" by the esteemed software industry "Square-Enix" (known for their Final Fantasy series) has me interested in buying a new Gen Ipod (160GB classic) so that I could play it.  [Note- I don't know every aspect of the game, so the description might be off] In "Song Summoner" you play the role of Ziggy who is confronted by an army of robots who wish to eradicate the human race and take all things musical away from them.  A man comes and teaches you the ways of using music as your weapon.  So what exactly is the weapon?  The music you have uploaded in your Ipod!!!  You choose whatever song you have and the game turns it into a playable character that will fight for you.  So what's the point in using the music on your Ipod?  Well, each time you listen to that particular song you chose to be a character on your Ipod, your character will get stronger each time:

The genre of the game is turn-based tactics (to those that know what it means), which means it's like a Role-Playing Chess game (to those that don't play videogames).  If I had the appropriate Ipod to play it on, I would not hesitate to buy this game (which I usually would when looking at Ipod and cellphone games).  It is available on iTunes for $5, so I think it's worthwhile.

[NDS - Final Fantasy IV]

Final Fantasy IV (known as Final Fantasy II in America when my dad bought it on Super Nintendo) was the first Final Fantasy game that I played (or watched my dad play, I used to always watch him play videogames).  So upon hearing Square-Enix's plan on remaking Final Fantasy III-VI on the DS in 3D got me excited.  Though I did not play Final Fantasy III that much (mainly because it did not come out in America on the NES) I thought of the remake on the DS to be interesting, especially with the incredible CG opening video to the game.

I'm not very far on it, so I don't know what to say about it.  Final Fantasy IV's CG opening on the other hand brought me to tears with it's dynamic CG opening and beautifully arranged music that brought back so many memories (I was about 5 or so when FF2, aka FF4 in Japan during that time, came out).

The obvious difference in the remake was the 3d view and rendering of all the characters and scenery.  Much of the game has been kept true to the original, so it feels very comfortable to veteran FF4 players.  But the aspect of the game that had me awestruck was the voiceovers.  The voice acting was surprisingly stupendous!  What's even stranger is that I think the english voice acting is even better than the Japanese voice acting.  I think what got me interested into Final Fantasy (besides my dad's influence on me) is the storylines (usually Hironobu Sakaguchi), the artworks (usually Yoshitaka Amano or Tetsuya Nomura), and especially the music (Nobuo Uematsu!).  The remake of Final Fantasy III was only average from the critics, but FF IV made up for it, scoring an average of 9-10 out of 10.  I don't know exactly what it is about Final Fantasy games that makes me love it so much, but I already knew I was a Final Fantasy fan when FFIV (remember, it was FFII in America during that time) came out.

hmm...I would do a review on it, but I just practically started.  It only came out 3 days ago (in America, it was out in Japan Nov. 2007).  But who cares, BUY IT!  BUY IT NOW!!!  (Though if you have an Ipod, I would suggest getting Song Summoner since it's more affordable.  FFIV DS=$40.  Song Summoner Ipod= $5).