Hyperdimension Neptunia U and more Drakengard 3 Rant

[MORE SPOILER ALERT FOR DRAKENGARD 3]

After listening to the music a bit more, dissecting the words and meaning behind them, and pondering on the whole story again, Drakengard 3's theme goes a bit deeper than I had tried to explain yesterday.  In my review of Drakengard 3, I mentioned the theme of "loneliness" a lot.  What I failed to point out was how this actually affected all the characters.  I've already mentioned this for Zero and Mikhail, so I think I can skip those.  Besides the idea of being "alone", there was also the "sense of belonging" that leads to the perception of being "alone".

[The Disciples]

Dito - Dito mentions many times how he seems to hate the world and all things in it.  He could never find companionship that shared his sadistic outlook for violence and inflicting pain.  He abhorred his time with Five and at one point in the game mentions how he was "having the time of his life killing people and watching Zero slaughter them alongside him".  It sounds messed up, but he seemed genuinely happy with Zero.  Yet, in Branch D he switched sides to the resurrected Five to live his dream in a chaotic world of death and destruction.  When he finally realized that he was about to disappear from summoning an angel without an intoner's song, he showed weakness for the first time.  He cried out for Zero not to leave him, but there was nothing she could do.

Decadus - As a masochist, Decadus only wanted to serve one that can please him in the way he liked it: to be punished and consistently insulted.  When serving Four, she was light on reprimanding him.  But he served her faithfully and even wished to have himself killed after Four was slain.  Zero captures him instead and Decadus humbly accepted to serve her until death.  He seemed much happier with the party in tow as each member, other than Mikhail, verbally bombards him with insults as he moans in pleasure from them.  Despite his weird ways, Zero does say that he's "been nothing but a perfect gentleman to her".  Zero seemed to have enjoyed his company and Decadus evidently liked being part of the group.  Out of all the disciples that leave in Branch D, Zero looked most pained to see Decadus go.

Octa - His entry into the party was one most unexpected.  He shows up looking like he was about to start one huge boss fight, only to drop his weapons and surrender.

Scene begins at 1:38

Octa had left because he wasn't satisfied with serving Three any longer.  He felt he didn't belong there anymore.  He claims that Three couldn't satiate his sexual desires any longer.  Despite being a dirty old man (even though he claims to be 22), he was wise and perceptive.  He often gave the most useful advice throughout the journey.  He would also mention a lot about sex and having a never ending erection along the way too.  But near the end of Branch D, when 3 of the disciples are gone, he says that he couldn't get an erection whatsoever.  Perhaps he felt the group felt lonely without the others around.  Perhaps what all the disciples wanted was a sense of belonging.  Despite being a band of weirdos, they stuck together as a group.

Cent - The pretty boy without a brain, Cent often spouts nonsensical statements as fact when he probably just made it up on the spot.  They made it a point to show how much of an idiot he is.  The only time he seemed right in the head was when he's around Two.  It seemed that Two and Cent were deeply in love with each other and that they were alone when separated.  It did seem like Cent was the most disjointed from the group out of the four members.

[The Intoners]

Five - There isn't much to say about Five.  She becomes obsessed with something and then immediately loses interest when she has it.  Nothing really seemed to satisfy her.

Four - She felt that they all should stick together as sisters.  She seemed to have all sorts of fond memories of Zero, but none of them seemed real.  But to her, she felt like she belonged at Zero's side.

Three - She never seemed sane to begin with.  She's like the black sheep of the family and didn't really have a place among the sisters.  Almost like she was lost in her own world, she never really seemed to have any connection to any of the characters, including her own disciple.

Two - Deeply in love with her disciple Cent, she never seemed to function correctly without him.  After the initial encounter with Two, the struggle of self conflict and sanity between Two and Cent is shown again and again in the alternate branches.

One - She is the only intoner that didn't lose her mind to the parasite's power and the only one that questioned their reason for being in the world.  She figure out what she and her sisters truly were and soon fought for the same reasons Zero did.  She was the only Intoner without a disciple and no one understood her motives.  Ironically, the one person that did understand her was the one she had to kill: Zero.


Thinking about it all, I really liked the narrative of Drakengard 3.  It's a shame that the rest of the game couldn't match up with the quality.



[Rant on Hyperdimension Neptunia U]

There isn't any spoilers for this game, because there's really nothing to spoil.  I kind of wish they had fleshed out some sort of story for the game, but it's simply just a spin-off meant to take on the Action Hack-n-Slash genre.  There isn't much I want to say about the game, but I wanted to talk a little bit about it.  I was disappointed with it, but I somehow still enjoyed the game.  I've completed the main game and didn't feel like I got much of an experience out of it, despite putting in 21 hours into it.  The game does have end-game content, but I'm not sure what to think of it.  The game itself plays a lot like Dynasty Warriors and/or Senran Kagura as it was made by the same developers as SK.  The catch is that most of the levels are arena based (one small room) and require taking out a lot of enemies.  The main gripe I have about the game is how confusing the balance of the game is.  Low level quests were sometimes ridiculously difficult while some high level quests were actually not that bad.  The recommended levels they listed don't seem to match up with what you have to put up with.  Some of the worst scenarios I had to deal with is a room full of enemies that can do a string of attacks that stun you.  When a group of enemies attack you in such a fashion, you will die because you'll be eternally stunned.  It's even worse when those same enemies have so much health that it takes a decent amount of time to take even one down.  I do appreciate the challenge the game provides over what SK games seemed to have presented, but it seems poorly balanced compared to the SK games.  Perhaps this was a change to the North American version because many English speaking fans that played the Japanese version said it was so mind-numbingly easy that it wasn't worth playing.  It took a bit of grinding, but I was able to complete the main quests by utilizing all the different abilities they provided so that I wouldn't die so easily.  Afterwards, it unlocked four things for me: Cheat codes, a Chapter 4 quests, a Gauntlet tournament, and a tower.  The Cheat codes can be unlocked by fulfilling certain requirements.  What they are, I don't know.  Chapter 4 quests give really high level and high difficulty enemies to fight against.  The Gauntlet is really unbalanced.  It gives items at the end (of which it didn't throughout the game), but the gameplay is so broken that it's not that fun.  On Wimpy (Easy), enemies are defeated in 1-2 moves.  On Decent (Normal), you die in one combo while they take minimal damage.  On Pro (Hard), you do 1 damage each hit while they One-shot you.  I'll try it more when I hit max level on my characters, but right now it's just farming for items on Wimpy mode.  The tower I haven't tried much yet.  It's just going up one floor after another to reach the top and fight the lass boss again.  I can dare to say that the game is adequately entertaining for me, but I can't say that it's really worth $40.  The game feels like it lacks depth and dynamics.  What made SK really great was the flow between story and gameplay.  HDN:U just seems to throw a lot of long-winded quests and then giving a few short conversations between the characters.  I'm probably going to play it more just to get my $40 worth, but it's kind of a hard game to recommend.  You'd have to really like Hack-n-Slashes in its bare core form or Hyperdimension Neptunia to enjoy the game.

The game that DRAGS-ON! [SPOILER ALERT Drakengard 3]

I really buckled down and made an effort to complete Drakengard 3 (Drag-On Dragoon 3 in Japanese) this past weekend.  Drakengard 3 is an Action game with aspects of hack-n-slash and RPG elements.  The game starts out with the main character Zero slaughtering dozens, if not hundreds, of soldiers to get to her sisters to kill them.  The game doesn't give much context and just showing the player that Zero really wants to kill her sisters and take their powers.  I see this plot device pattern used in a lot of games where it doesn't tell you what the true motive or reasoning behind the adventure is until it's close to the end of the game.  Even when the player kills the last sister and then dies, it still doesn't tell the player what the whole story was about.  Then an alternate timeline reveals itself and you play through that one, and then again on another timeline.  After the third time, the game pulls a game design choice that virtually extends the gameplay time before the player can progress.  It required the player to collect 100% of the weapons in the game before they can continue to the 4th and final arch of the story.  That was an extra 5 hours of grinding for money and hunting down weapons.  Then I got through the last arch which was as twice as long as the past 2 story arch before reaching this BS, final confrontation.

The confrontation begins at 2:30

Honestly, an ending like this is absolutely beautiful and memorable.  But the problem is that the gameplay side of this section is absurdly difficult and unforgiving that it didn't feel worth practicing over and over for.  It's a music-rhythm mini-game that goes to Game Over if you miss even one note.  I tried 7-10 times before I gave up.  The long loading times between each retry didn't help encourage me either.

So there's a lot I want to say about this game, but I'd rather keep it short and simple.  I want to start out by saying that this game has flaws and problems, but I don't regret playing through it.  I guess it'd be best if I just complained about everything I didn't like first before explaining why this game is even worth talking about.

Cons:
- In-game graphics is garbage compared to what the opening cinematic looks like
- Lots of textures and models look outdated
- Many levels are reused; you will play each level 2-4 times throughout the game
- There isn't much depth or backstory to any of the characters, even though I like them
- Long loading times, despite eating up 5 GB worth of hard drive space to install the game
- Dubbing; the English voice overs weren't bad, but they changed the characters' personality
- Combat is largely because of combos and camera angle
- Usefulness of weapons; knuckles and chakrams were largely useless throughout the game
- Some enemies would strike for 25%-75% of your health, and you'd fight multiples of them
- Some levels throw so many enemies out that they literally block the view
- Forcing the player to gather 100% of the weapons to progress the story
- The game felt like it dragged on a lot and kept going when it should have ended
- The final confrontation being absurdly difficult; it wasn't worth my time

So with that out of the way, I can start talking about what I did like about the game.

[Story]
The premise is quite simple, but I enjoyed it.  It starts off explaining how mankind was at constant war with each other.  5 beings went around and sang their songs that soothed the hearts of men and ended the wars.  These beings went on to become known as intoners who the men worshiped like gods.  They were sisters of serenity that brought peace back to mankind.  But then there was a 6th sister that wanted to kill them all and take their powers for her own: Zero.  Zero charged into the castle with a dragon named Michael to slay her sisters.  As Zero fought each one of her sisters, they retreated one by one only to have a dragon summoned by them counter-attack Zero.  Michael dove in and blocked the attack aimed at Zero.  It is assumed that Michael perished shortly after as the player is introduced to a tiny Dragon named Mikhail.  After a time of recovery from the loss of her arm, Zero set out to kill her sisters again.  One by one, she hunted down her sisters: Five, Four, Three, Two, and One.  Each Intoner has a disciple that helps in summoning an angel to fight for them.  After killing each Intoner, Zero takes their disciple and has sex with them every night.  I kid you not, that is brought up a lot in the game (but nothing is ever shown).  There's Dito the sadist, Decadus the masochist, Octa the old man with an insatiable sexual appetite, and Cent the handsome idiot.  They all join Zero in the slaughter of soldiers, trolls, beasts, and all sorts of enemies to reach the other intoners for Zero to kill.  After getting 3 different endings, it is finally revealed why they were on this journey in the first place.  Zero had died, supposedly.  But she awoke and with great power.  She found out that there was a parasite living within her in the form of a flower and would one day bloom and destroy the world.  She tried killing herself when she found out only to be reborn out of the flower again and again.  Then she tried pulling out the flower from her eye only to have spawned 5 copies of herself.  They, in a sense, became her sisters and ensured the power of the parasite to come to fruition to destroy the world.  The only way to destroy that power was the strength of a dragon.  Zero had met Michael and agreed to cooperate in order to save the world.  They would kill all 5 sisters and then Zero would sacrifice herself to Michael in order stop the end of the world.  It is revealed in the middle of the game that right before Michael died, he respawned but lost all of his memories.  And that is how Mikhail became to be.  The responsibility fell on Mikhail to end it all, and that meant killing Zero.

So why did I like the story?  It was different and I was able to empathize with the characters.  It sounds so contradictory when Zero wants to save the world from destruction yet slaughters hundreds to thousands along the way to do so.  It's contradictory for the Intoners to bring peace to the people when they will ultimately become the end of all living things.  I felt the whole theme around the story was about being alone.  Zero didn't really face the quest alone because she had Michael.  Although short, that opening scene reveals a very intimate camaraderie between the two.  Zero had a lot of confidence, faith and trust in Michael while he, as an all mighty dragon with wisdom and power, had this caring nature for Zero which ultimately got him killed as he shielded the blast for Zero in the beginning of the game.  Mikhail is a totally different character.  He is depicted as young, innocent, naive, and playful.  He is incredibly faithful to Zero, yet Zero consistently yells and insults him throughout the game.  You would think that Zero would slowly become attached to Mikhail, but near the end of the game, I had a different impression.  She had already loved him from the beginning, but only she knew of the deal that she and Michael had; that Michael would be the one to end her to prevent the end of the world.  With Mikhail's innocence, I can't help but feel like Zero tried her best to prevent Mikhail from being too attached to Zero so that he would be able to fulfill that same responsibility.  It was also a way for Mikhail to toughen up and never settle for being weak, and it really reflected at the very last confrontation (as much as I hated the gameplay), because it was very difficult but it befell to Mikhail to see it through and destroy the flower.  That's one instance of showing loneliness in the game.  Zero always felt isolated.  Even when asked about her "friends" the disciples, she retorts and says she didn't have friends and never had any to begin with.  She didn't want to become attached or have anyone attached to her.  But it was clear that she enjoyed the company, as weird as they were, as in one arch, she decides to save them before they disappear and in another arch she looked pained when they left.  Zero couldn't trust anyone else to help her kill her sisters as they were the ones that brought peace back to the land.  Suddenly, that contradiction I stated earlier makes sense, doesn't it?  She killed all that impeded her way because no one would believe her or help her.  And with the Intoners having such a large influence over the people of the land, the men would fight and die for them which is what the parasite probably wants.  The only sister that understood their purpose in the world was "One" but she didn't trust Zero to follow through and wanted to fulfill the same goal Zero had.  In the end, the one who was truly left alone was Mikhail, which is why it was such an emotional scene when Zero finally told Mikhail that he had gotten stronger as he was about ready to destroy the flower (Shown in beginning of video above).  It's a very sad story in contrast to the abundant humor the game had throughout the journey, but it was one that I enjoyed.

[Humor]
I heard the first two Drakengard games were very dark and moody (I have the 2nd one, but haven't played it).  So it was kind of a shock to fans when they realized how much humor was put into the dialogues, cinematics, and characters.  A lot of the humor is vulgar, slapstick, or twisted/dark jokes as the writers said they wanted to write for a mature audience.  You can bet there will be a lot of bantering between the disciples when there's a sadist, masochist, sex maniac, and a big idiot.  The writers know the game is extremely violent, offensive, and has tons of innuendos, so they just roll with it and turn it into something funny (as messed up as it sometimes seems).

Start the video at 3:56

[Characters]

Zero - Zero is sort of a tsundere.  She isn't really honest with herself, but she has a very good reason for being so.  She knows that she must end her life at the end of this journey and doesn't want to be attached to anyone or have anyone attached to her.  She's often foul-mouthed, angry, and very frank with her words.  But there are times she shows weakness of losing people around her.  It is most evident whenever she loses Mikhail.  I kind of want to know what kind of person she was before she was infested with a parasite, but I realize that it's not important for the player to know at all in her current journey.  I kind of liked Zero's character.  She's very tough, but her rare moments of compassion reminds the player that she still human emotions and isn't just a killing machine.  If anything, she feels like a really lonely character to me.  She knows she's not a hero and not a savior.  There was no good guys and bad guys; there were only countless victims.  She just wants to set things right and take responsibility.

One, Two, Three, Four, Five - It's difficult to remember boss battle characters sometimes in videogames because you encounter them and defeat them within several minutes.  The 5 sisters make reoccurring appearances and you'll face them multiple times.  It kind of leaves an impression after a while and you start to pick up the differences between them.  If anything, Two, Three, Four, and Five were more for dramatic and humorous encounters.  One was the most serious one of the sisters and the only one that seemed to understand what was going on as well as being the only one to have not been driven mad by the flower's power.  She wants the same thing as Zero, but neither one trusts each other with the job.  Four left the biggest impression on me because she seemed very sincere about loving Zero and not wanting to fight.  Perhaps the five sisters each possess a piece of Zero's original personality.

The Disciples: Dito, Decadus, Octa, Cent - This band of weirdos made the journey less boring.  You can bring two of them into battle with you to aggro some of the enemies off of you and help you in a fight.  Along the way, they'll have plenty of things to say.  They'll complain about their situation, give advice, and yell at one another.  At one point in the game, Mikhail felt like it was so much quieter when three of the disciples were gone.  Even the one disciple felt off without the company of the others around.  It was then I started seeing the theme of "loneliness" in the game's story.  As messed up as he was, Dito was one of my favorites.  The way he reveled in violence and the pain he inflicted was entertaining and felt fitting with all the fighting you do.

Mikhail - He was a rather lovable character.  He was so carefree and childish that I couldn't help but feel sorry for him sometimes whenever he receives a barrage of insults from the party.  But I can see why his character works so well as he's so contradictory to the rest of the game.  That contrast made him stand out.  He didn't like fighting and definitely didn't like killing.  He wants to do his best and be praised only to mess up and get yelled at.  He didn't really care about anything as long as it made Zero happy.  So it was a really sad parting for him to say goodbye to Zero.  He wanted to become strong for Zero and was finally able to prove it on the very last confrontation where he bested the flower's song and finished it off.

[Combat]
One of my complaints was about combat, but I also kind of liked parts of it.  I didn't like how clunky combat felt.  There are many hack-n-slash games where starting a combo meant you were locked in animation until it's over.  You can't block, evade, jump, or cancel the animation in any way.  This meant getting hit when you're fighting something else.  I also didn't like how the efficiency of two our of four of the weapons dropped shortly after you acquire them.  They hold almost no potential usefulness throughout the game.  You only needed to use swords for multiple enemies and the spear/lance for single-targets.  What I did like is the simplicity of combat and its challenges.  The game is challenging, and sometimes not in very fair ways.  But to make the battle possible, you need to utilize everything you've got.  This means dodging, block/parry, buying and using items, upgrading weapons, going into intoner mode, switching between weapons, and sometimes using combos.  There are a lot of games where I end up saving up all the money and items and never using them because they were never needed.  Other times, there are games where you don't even use certain moves.  But the game's design and difficulty forces you to utilize them all in order to get through the game, and I think that's great.  Through its simplicity, there's a lot of planning and techniques you must use to survive and overcome impossible situations.  I honestly think it's impossible to play the end levels without Strength and Defense potions because enemies hits too hard and frequently in large groups while having too much HP to be able to be defeated normally.  Also, I love how the music has an added operatic voice melded in whenever you go into intoner mode.   That part in presentation made for such dramatic effect and lasting impression.  It reminds me of Chaos Legion where the music changes whenever you bring out your summons or in Final Fantasy XIII-2 where the music gets more aggressive when an enemy is close by.

[Presentation]


This opening cinematic was breathtaking and is sadly the only one with this kind of quality.  This made me really disappointed in the in-game graphics with some of the blocky models and outdated textures.  I was thinking that maybe they lowered the assets so that it would run smoothly, but even Dynasty Warriors 7 & 8 didn't look so bad when they have almost 4-5 times more enemies on screen than this game.  Even then, the game's frame rate would drop a lot whenever there's an explosion.  Lots of levels are reused, but are presented differently each time (different atmosphere/color tone, going backwards from last time).  There were many problems and flaws with its presentation.  But what made up for it was the writing and audio.  The jokes and humor were actually pretty good and gave a good laugh throughout the journey.  And even though I didn't like how the English dub changed the personalities of the characters, I felt like their delivery really accentuated the type of characters they've changed.  And then there's the music.  I think I might have given up on this game too half-way if it weren't for the magnificent music that ranged from being very aggressive and loud to mellow melodies of sorrow.

Arrival of the Guards – Battle Stage
Prevolt / Battleground
防来／戦場


This is possibly my favorite track and probably even the director's favorite because it was used so many times.  There are three boss fights that use this melody!

Arrival of the Guards – Zophiel
Prevolt / Zophiel
防来／ゾフィエル


That energy and that haunting melody spends a chill down my spine.  I really liked Four that much more because of her Boss Fight songs.

Kuroi Uta -black song- (International)
クロイウタ／日本国外向け製品収録版


The 8 minute final confrontation song is also amazing too (the video on the very top) called The Last Song.  The music really made for an enjoyable experience.  Without it, I don't even know what to think of how the game would be like.


I'm sad I couldn't truly finish the game, but I'm really happy that I played it through to at least that part.  It was funny, sad, and beautiful.  Sadly, I don't think it's a game I can easily recommend.

Time and Eternity Rant [SPOILERS]

I finished Time and Eternity for PS3 yesterday and felt it's worth talking about.  I first heard about the game when NIS America released three trailers of games they were working on publishing: Disgaea D2, The Guided Fate Paradox (bought this one, but haven't played it yet), and Time and Eternity.  This was the trailer for the game:


The trailer is so silly, right?  But it seems like a very unique experience.  Exploration is with 2D images in a 3D environment.  Battles are in real-time with influences from action games.  And the game looked like it was strongly story driven.  I was mainly interested in the action-orientated combat system and the music.  As much as I love turn-based battle systems in JRPGs, I've played so many of them that I'm always craving for something new.  And for the music, I immediately liked when I heard them in the trailer and felt the composition to be familiar in style.  Sure enough, I looked it up and found out the music was created by one of my favorite composers, Yuzo Koshiro.  For these two main reasons, I kept an eye out for the game.  Shortly after it released, it got panned by critics and players alike.  It ended up getting a 42 out of 100 on Metacritic.  Ignoring the critic reviews to see what a game is like with my own eyes and hands, I finally bought a copy for around $25.  Considering my backlog, I didn't think I'd play it any time soon.  But I felt like I had to play it right after I had completed Hyperdimension Neptunia and so I opened it and started playing it.

Immediately, I started seeing problems with the game.  The game was advertised as a "Hi-def Animation RPG" and the graphics were truly bright, clean and beautiful; however, the animation itself was really poor.  Movements were anywhere from 2-7 frames, the lip movements didn't match the English voice OR the Japanese voice, the same animation sequences are used over and over throughout the game, and so on and so forth.  I think I might actually have to list everything out that went wrong with the game:

-Very few frames used for movement, making it look choppy and cheap when in motion
-Same animation sequences are reused quite often throughout the game
-Lip movements didn't match up to dialogue in both English and Japanese voice-overs
-The male protagonist is such a creeper
-Not enough variation between Toki and Towa's animations
-The same jokes are reused and they tend to stop being funny if they ever were funny
-Story is meant to be humorous yet it doesn't seem to fully achieve it
-Combat controls feel clunky BUT was meant to be in order to maintain the challenge
-Exploration involved a LOT of backtracking
-Side-quests are uninteresting and the rewards are often negligible
-Enemies are obnoxious and annoying to fight sometimes
-Characters felt shallow and forgettable (in the beginning)
-The game has a LOT of padding which means having to grind a LOT (mostly by doing side-quests)
-Side-quests were pointless if you knew how to manage your currency and grind effectively
-Fighting beginning level enemies gave close to the same amount of exp as high level enemies...

So by now, you must be thinking "man, he must've really hated the game".  When I started the game, I was thinking "what did I get myself into?"  But I kept going and got through the game and actually ended up really liking it!  Yes, the game is heavily flawed, but I don't think it's a "bad game".  It's not a game I can easily recommend to a friend, but I felt like the game deserves merit in what it did right which was creating a fresh and unique experience in a long running genre that so many believe to be dead now.

So let's start from the beginning again.  The game starts off with the wedding of the Knight (Zack) to the Princess (Toki) of Kamza.  As they make their vows, a band of assassins break through the church doors and attack the Zack and Toki.  Zack dives forward to protect Toki only to be fatally wounded with a stab to the abdomen.  As Zack believes he was cool in protecting the princess, Toki's personality suddenly changes as her Red hair and eyes become golden yellow and starts taking down the assassins.  It is then revealed that there is a second soul living within Toki's body with the name Towa (which their name means Time and Eternity in Japanese, by the way).  They go back 6 months before their wedding with Zack suddenly in the body of Toki's pet dragon, Drake.  The story continues with Zack in Drake's body, Toki, and Towa as they travel back in time to stop their wedding from being attacked over and over until they can finally have their wedding and their future.  Now, it's time to get into details.

[Graphics]
I like the art style of the game.  It's colorful, bright, vibrant, and easy on the eyes.  One of the biggest problems a lot of people have with the game is with how much assets are recycled throughout the game.  The same animations, environments, enemies, and NPCs are copy and pasted with new color palettes to signify a distinction between them all.  There are some different animations between Toki and Towa as they are two different people despite sharing the same body, but they also share a lot of the same animations such as the battle and exploration animations.  But being able to look past that, the graphics are "alright".  There are plenty of games that reuse assets to create more content with less work; this game just happens to overdo it and make it stand out as being cheap and uninspired.  I can't say that I hated the graphics because of this tactic, but I suppose I was disappointed.

I also want to note that the game does have some fan-service with 11 CG still-frames throughout the game that are triggered through certain events.  This is generally something I've come to accept in Japanese animé and games and don't really worry about.  But it seems to be a common topic many Western audiences argue about whether it should be in games or not.  I don't think any of them were censored.  The only thing censored in the game that I know of is the panty-shot animations in combat.

[Audio]
The one thing that everyone seems to praise the game for is the music.  A lot of the songs are quite moving and have a memorable melody.  The music really makes up for the entire mood and atmosphere of the whole game that it seems to lack visually.  Some of them are so good that I could listen to them for hours.
Marriage (Title Screen):

Palais de Kamza (Wedding Theme):

Wind of Hope (Plains Field):

Bout! (Towa's Battle Theme):

Memory Disorder (Last Boss Battle):


You can tell it's Yuzo Koshiro's work if you've listened to a lot of his work on the Etrian Odyssey series.  The music really played a big part on the whole experience.  There isn't much to say about sound effects other than that it was well executed (I appreciate the work put into sound effects ever since I've played Valhalla Knights Eldar Saga).  For voice-overs, I played with the English voices for about an hour before I decided to switch and stay with the Japanese voice-overs.  I can't say it was bad, but I felt more comfortable with the Japanese voice-overs.  The audio was definitely the stronger points in the game.

[Gameplay]
There's a lot to say about the gameplay.  The flow of the game consists of a cinematic, then dialogue between the characters, picking up side-quests (optional), and then going out onto a field to fulfill an objective.  So it's a typical "build a basis for the story and progress with gameplay" sort of RPG.  Objectives are straight-forward and to the point.  Despite that, the game does love to beat around the bush.  Following only the main quests will often have the player's level fall behind the recommended level to play in.  Thankfully, there is a difficulty setting that allows you to play between Easy and Normal.  Since I'm not too fond of grinding and excessive padding, I chose to play Easy which reduces the amount of grinding required by quite a bit.  Exploration consists of traversing large maps and triggering events.  You'll receive quests to fulfill, encounter different NPCs to talk to, and fight bosses to progress to the next main objective.  Scattered between the main quests are side-quests the player can partake in order to receive rewards and gain experience points to level up.  Enemy encounters are still the same as most JRPGs where you'll have a random battle encounter while walking around the field and then go into a battle phase.  One of the great mechanics within the game is a bar that tells you when you'll run into an enemy.  You won't run into an enemy until the bar is full.  With this, you can expect and anticipate a battle and not be frustrated whenever you run into one since you'll know when it's coming.  When leveling up, the player can choose between an assortment of "gifts" which are kind of like specializations that Toki and Towa can acquire to learn new skills and gain new attributes.  The "gifts" are linked in a sort of "skill tree" kind of way so you have to get certain ones before acquiring the higher level ones.  The player can only play as Toki or Towa at any given time until they switch off.  The two souls switch whenever they level up or if they use a "pepper".  Zack, who is in Drake's body, can't be controlled directly; however, the player can gain certain skills to influence him later on to work alongside with Toki or Towa's abilities.  For the most part, Zack just attacks and heals on his own free will.  Combat is in real-time, so there's no waiting.  Enemies will follow a general attack pattern and it's up to the player to learn them and fight accordingly.  The player controls Toki or Towa with these key mechanics: Running up to and back from enemies, normal attacking (blade: close / rifle: ranged), abilities, blocking/countering, dodging, item usage, time spells, and finishers.  Combat in this game feels a lot like an action game where you have to learn and memorize each pattern for every enemy to effectively fight against them.  Knowing when to block, when to attack, and abusing an enemy's weakness is the only way the player can defeat an enemy.  Enemies can be pretty obnoxious with their different abilities and patterns.  As mentioned before, a lot of enemies will look exactly alike with a different color palette and be considered a totally different enemy.  They might have the same abilities, but their timing, patterns, and stats (health and damage amount) will vary.  Besides knowing the timing of the enemies, the player must know the timing of their own characters' abilities.  Spells have a charge time and can be interrupted by enemy attacks.  The player can't dodge or block if they're in the middle of a combo attack.  The controls feel clunky at first, but makes sense in a design standpoint.  Were the player able to block and dodge at any given time or have extremely tight controls over every action, they'd be practically invincible.  This kept combat fresh and the player on edge every battle.  Yes, it's extremely tiring and sometimes tedious, but I found it to be really interesting since I'm always engaged with the fight rather than just mashing "confirm" to attack to get through a battle like most turn-based JRPGs turn out to be.  I found the enemies that silence, knock down a lot, or the ones that never stop attacking to be some of the most difficult ones to deal with.  Here's a breakdown of all the pros and cons I can think off on top of my head:
+ Objectives are straight-forward and very easy to follow (never get lost, I love it)
+ Exploration are never too drawn out (for main quests, at least) with decently sized maps
+ The enemy encounter rate bar was a great idea.  I liked knowing when I'll get into a fight
+ Combat is fresh, unique, and engaging. It's one of the game's most notable aspects
+ Fights (especially bosses) were challenging and memorable
+ I liked the plethora of items, abilities and time skills I was capable of utilizing in battle

- Side-quests are often boring and gave negligible rewards
- There is a LOT of back-tracking involved, especially with side-quests involved
- Walking towards an objective can feel like a real drag sometimes, mainly with side-quests
- There isn't a wide variety of enemies as a lot of them are recycled
- In order to get the "special ending" you have to play through "new game+" IOW 2nd playthrough
- The time skills can be pretty BS.  How BS?  It made the last boss stupidly easy

[Characters]
I'm probably not going to cover every character, but I want to review all the pivotal ones.

Ricardo, Lucy & Linus: These three are the comic reliefs of the game despite the game being mostly humorous (or tries to be).  Toki/Towa and Zack first encounter the three in the first chapter when they went back 6 months before their wedding to find out why the Assassin's Guild attacked them during their ceremony.  Thinking that they were from the Assassin's Guild, they fight them only to find out they're Assassin's Guild fans.  Even later, Ricardo is revealed to be a baker and a horrible one at that.  Ricardo is always seen proposing to Toki/Towa and refuses to back down while Zack (in Drake's body) keeps biting his head.  This on-going gag got old super fast and they stuck with it to the very end of the game.  A lot of the jokes and gags around Ricardo were often bad as the cakes he made, but perhaps that's the whole point?  Ricado and his lackeys feel very much like background characters you can forget about, but the amount of times they come forth to help out the heroes seems to say otherwise.  I didn't find these characters to be particularly interesting.

Makimona: I thought for sure she was the main villain and the main cause of this entire crisis.  The Jill-of-all-trades did everything from fortune-telling to being a spirit medium to protecting the gates to the guardians of the "something" treasures.  When Toki was about to be married, she asked Makimona her fortune and she told Toki that someone was going to die.  Later on, they realized she wasn't a fortune teller at all.  She just makes stuff up when people ask her what their fortune are.  She appears in every chapter of the game and tries to help the heroes as best as she can while asking for favors to help her in return.  In one chapter, she reveals that she's asked 328 men on a date but couldn't get anyone to go out with her because of her timid personality.  Out of all the bosses you had to fight in the game, she was my favorite one since it was the most difficult one that required the most planning and thinking.

Netherdrake: The last boss to the 2nd chapter of the game, who's afraid of the bad business bureau more than death.  That joke was actually kind of funny which is why I'm mentioning this character.

Enda: She's Toki and Towa's energetic friend that seems to love cake because she's seen eating one every time you go back home.  Enda was the first character I liked when I started the game because of how cute she was.  But by the end of the game, there wasn't much to her character past that.  She's known to have a strange taste in men and is often portrayed "head-over-heels" over Ricardo throughout the first chapter of the game.  When Ricardo finally asks her to go out with him after being dumped by Toki/Towa a dozen times, she said "no".

Reijo: Toki/Towa's rich friend who was born from a noble family, or so I thought.  I didn't like this character at first as she was immediately portrayed as the pompous "ojou-sama" type character that I generally dislike.  She calls Zack all sorts of different weed names and seems to look down upon him as being worthless.  She often emphasizes how rich she was whenever she was around Toki in the beginning.  In the beginning of Chapter 2, Reijo stabs Toki/Towa at their wedding.  When Toki/Towa and Zack go back in time to find out why that happened, they found out that she was being controlled by the Netherdrake to do his bidding.  Reijo had asked the Netherdrake to fulfill her wish and in return, she had to kill the princess at the wedding.  Reijo begged and pleaded to take back the contract, but all deals with the Netherdrake were final.  As the chapter unfolded, the heroes find out that Reijo was not of nobility, but rather of poverty.  She grew up without a father and lived with her mother in a small town and relied on the many various weeds around her home to provide food, medicine, and material for survival.  So perhaps, she's been complimenting Zack all this time as weed is often seen as strong since they don't die easily and it's obviously been useful to Reijo throughout her life.  She was happy with her life until her mother died from illness.  She was deeply upset with the loss of her mother, but was then confronted by a young Toki who comforted her.  It was then that Reijo wanted to be friends with Toki but didn't know how to.  With the desire to be rich so that she could be Toki's friend, she made a deal with the Netherdrake to make her unbelievably wealthy.  It turns out that she didn't care about the money and would often donate a portion every month to charity.  She only wanted to be friends with Toki/Towa.  The wish Reijo had asked for from the Netherdrake was for a flawless and happy wedding for her friend Toki/Towa as she cared very much for her.  But the Netherdrake asked Reijo to kill her.  With that contradiction, the heroes attack the Netherdrake and threatened to report him to the bad business bureau.  The love and dedication to her friend as well as her selflessness shown that chapter is what made Reijo my favorite character out of the game.

Wedi: Toki/Towa's clumsy friend who keeps tripping over herself.  Wedi is also the wedding planner for Toki/Towa.  She's forgetful, ditsy, but very kind.  With Reijo often insulting Zack and Enda playing along, Wedi is the only friend of Toki/Towa that treats Zack with a bit of respect.  There isn't much to Wedi's character as well, although her moment of glory in the opening of chapter 3 was pretty cool.  Makimona is the one to attack the wedding in the 3rd chapter and nearly kills both Toki and Zack; however, Wedi leaps out and summons a Golem to block the brunt of the attack.  That sort of confidence and courage surprised even Wedi when Toki/Towa and Zack go back in time to tell her what had happened.  She then goes out, risking her life, to befriend a Golem to prepare for the worst just in case something does happen.  She explains to Makimona that she had a boy that she liked but never found the courage to tell him and was soon taken by another girl.  Despite her sadness, she found happiness among her friends.  Her friendship to Toki/Towa is what gives her strength and is what made her decide to become a wedding planner to ensure Toki/Towa would have the best wedding ever.  Wedi is just a good-natured girl in general.

Toki: Toki is the sweet and more reserved one between the two souls.  She specializes in using the rifle and shoots much faster than Towa does in combat.  Her main magic ability is of the Fire element and has more of a focus on spells.  She's soft-spoken and very lady-like.  Considering how much of a pervert Zack is, the player has to question why she would want to marry him.  As the game progresses, Zack upholds a lot of action that is considered chivalrous and Toki exclaims that she fell more and more in love with him as time went by.  One particular story revealed that when her pet dragon Drake was sick, Zack was the one who went out and got the medicine to help nurse him back to health.  Zack confessed that he had his knight buddies help him find it when he couldn't when Toki was telling that story and she liked that part of him too, in that he was an honest man who respected others and helped those in trouble.  Despite being a princess, Toki wants a normal life outside the castle walls living with Zack and raising a family.  She's the type of person that cared for others before herself.

Towa: Towa is more wild and aggressive between the two souls.  She'll often speak her mind bluntly and isn't easily intimidated.  She specializes in daggers and closer quarter combat and thus does a lot more damage up close than Toki does in combat.  Her main magic ability is of the lightning element but still focuses more on physical prowess.  Despite her aggressive personality, she's actually quite shy and still acts like a girl when embarrassed.  In other words, she's a tsundere.  Towa had never really planned on letting Zack know that she was sharing Toki's body, but circumstances led her to come out.  Despite the surprise, Zack accepted Towa and even began to fall in love with her as much as Toki as she was just as considerate and caring as Toki was for her friends and others.  Towa spoke to Zack about her desires to be able to go on a normal date with him and be able to experience all the activities couples got to do.  She didn't want to be seen as just a part of Toki but rather an individual.  I think I might have liked Towa a little more because the contrast in her demeanor gave her personality.

Zack: I really didn't like this character at all in the beginning.  Right from the beginning, he was a total creeper with perverted thoughts.  He seemed very cocky and full of himself in the beginning of the game where he protects Toki and starts insinuating "man, I'm so cool for doing that.  I must seem like a total chick magnet right now."  It was very difficult to empathize with such a character that seemed so selfish and narcissistic.  But as the game progresses, he is portrayed as an upstanding man who still believed in chivalry.  He's still a pervert, through and through.  But there was more to him than just a man full of naughty thoughts.  Why did he want to marry Toki in the first place?  He saw the kindness and loyalty she had for her friends and those around her and wanted to be with a person with such ideals of raising a happy family.  When asked about his dreams, he replied that he wanted to be an upstanding knight who protected the country he loved and helped those in need.  And more than anything, it was the interaction that he had with Toki/Towa, their friends, and those who needed help that made me finally accept the character.  Throughout the adventure, it was never about the guy saving the girl or the girl protecting the guy.  It was a mutual bond of wanting a happy life together and so they fought alongside each other as equals for a future they both wished to share together.  Knowing that Towa was just as much of a part of Toki, Zack could not deny her and accepted her fully for who she was.  Despite the difficulties that Toki/Towa's friends presented towards Zack, he never rejected them.  Instead, he learned more about them and understood why these people were to important to Toki/Towa and why they were friends.  At the very end, he showed that he cared about the happiness of others as well as his own.

[Story]
There is a lot to be said about the dialogue and scenarios presented.  The game tried to be humorous, but a lot of the jokes were lame or were poorly executed because of the timing of the animations and flow of speech.  But despite it all, I came to really like the story as a whole when I got to the very end of the game.  It was a fun adventure with a sweet story of love and marriage.  Could it have been better?  Absolutely.  Along with character development, graphics, gameplay technicalities, and scenario writing, the game could have been significantly better.  But I'll accept what I was given and leave it at that.

-Opening-
Zack meets with Toki and gathers to see all of her friends: Enda, Reijo, and Wedi.  At their wedding ceremony, Zack and Toki are attacked by a band of assassins with Zack fatally wounded.  The two travel back in time and try to prevent the attack from ever happening.  The opening of the game wasn't too bad.  There was a LOT of talking before I got to get to gameplay, but it wasn't to the point of being unbearable.

-Chapter 1-
This might have been the weakest chapter in the game.  Toki/Towa and Zack try to find the Assassin's Guild and stop them from attacking the wedding.  Along the way, they meet Ricardo and his two lackeys.  Enda follows you a few times just to see Ricardo while Ricardo constantly keeps asking Toki/Towa to go out with him.  The jokes and gags revolving around Ricardo and Enda were pretty lame and they're used over and over.  I still think Enda is pretty cute, but wish she had more (if any) character development.  They found out that the Assassin's Guild attacked their wedding because they provoked them into doing so by saying "don't do it" when they never planned on doing so.  They ceased all ideas of them ever attacking and then went back to the present to return to their wedding.

-Chapter 2-
This time, their wedding is attacked by monsters and Reijo stabs Toki.  I really liked this chapter because of the character development around Reijo.  I think the whole game would have had a better story to tell if there were more character development among the friends to Toki/Towa to go beyond the reason of "I want to help because she's my friend".  This chapter also provided a bit more character development on Makimona as you ask her for help while she asks for help in return.  The last boss for this chapter was quite different, but I can't really say if it was a "good" kind of different.  I've already told a majority of the story in Reijo's description up above.

-Chapter 3-
Makimona is not happy that you're happy and she's not.  She makes this clear quite a few times throughout the chapter.  She crashes the wedding with the "Something Four" treasures and attacks Toki and Zack only to have Wedi protect them.  When going back in time, Toki/Towa's grandmother explains that they're probably stuck in a mobius loop; a phenomenon in time travel in which the destiny or outcome of an event can never change (Ever watched/read The Time Machine?).  In order to break the never ending cycle, they have to collect the "Something Four" treasures from the guardians with the gates being guarded by Makimona.  Makimona only knows that the treasure brings happiness to newlyweds and becomes more and more reluctant in letting the heroes have it for themselves.  After she takes the treasures from you after collecting all of them, you fight her and she gives them back only to have them fall off the floating island.  Makimona and Toki/Towa's friend make their own "Something Four" treasures in hopes of good luck as the heroes go back to the present hoping for the best without the treasures.

-Chapter 4-
The sand that's been in the hourglass attached to Toki suddenly bursts out and says that the heroes will continue to re-live this tragedy over and over no matter what and was prepared to send them into a perpetual string of tragic outcomes of their wedding.  Then the treasure that everyone made ceased the sand's attack and personified it into a human girl (even though it's a dude?  So confusing).  Fighting all the bosses in reverse order, the heroes take down mobius over and over until they learn that the reason why they're stuck in a mobius loop is because of a contradiction in vow.  Toki and Towa made a promise to each other when they were 5 years old that is akin to a marriage.  They would stick together no matter what.  This allowed the two souls to co-exist this entire time without having one being dominant and having the other one disappear.  But because of that promise, their attempt to marry Zack contradicts it.  Their solution was to have Toki/Towa's grandmother go back in time and tell them not to make such a promise and reserve such a promise to a man that they will meet and love.  The problem was that this will cause one of the two souls to disappear and not exist anymore.  A fate worse than death, Zack had to choose which soul remained and which disappeared.  Honestly, it was a heart-breaking decision to make.  I ended up making two save files and fought the last boss twice and saw both endings.  They were both great endings if not a little sad.  Choosing one or the other, Toki/Towa will lose all memory of one another when they break out of the mobius loop as well as losing all memory of ever meeting Zack.  Everyone loses the memories of the soul that disappears other than Zack and the grandmother (who returns back to the present safely).  Zack asks Toki or Towa (depending who remained) to marry him of which she refuses as she had only met him.  But then he asks again and she agreed because she felt that there was some connection to him in some way that time couldn't explain.  And so they spend a year together creating new memories before their marriage.

For Toki's ending, it's a normal and happy ending with Toki throwing the bouquet and Makimona furiously diving for it hoping for a chance to meet a man.

With Towa's ending, it was a little more humorous.  Towa gets embarrassed for having to kiss Zack in front of everyone and so instead of Zack holding her out the door, Towa holds Zack princess-style out the door for payback.  Then they cut the wedding cake, but Towa is so strong that she pulls Zack with the knife and cuts the cake in half along with the table.  With either ending, they wonder what to name their first child.  And they said if it's a girl, they want to name her the one that didn't remained (Towa / Toki).

Sadly, the special ending was not all that special at all.  Through some miracle, both Toki and Towa's soul remained.  But then it just goes to an image and said they lived happily ever after together.  I was hoping it'd be more fleshed out with a nice cinematic and everything, so it was rather disappointing.


And that about wraps things up.  I really wasn't expecting too much out of the game, but I'm really glad that I ended up enjoying it and felt so good about it at the end.

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.

A Weekend of Destiny and Composition in the Morning

This morning, I was woken up by my alarm clock and hit the snooze for an extra 30 minutes.  Within those 30 minutes, I had a dream were I was consciously composing a song in my head.  The melody and sounds of the piano, strings and horns were so clear that it resonated throughout my dream.  And I kept building upon it and heard it expand in my dream.  Then the alarm clock went off again and I woke up.  With that idea lingering in my head, I thought about it a second and realized I can still hear how I wanted the song to sound like.  After eating breakfast and starting up my computer, I quickly recorded whatever I had down.  I've had times where an idea or tune comes to mind either in my dream or at random times during the day; however, they're usually fleeting and I end up forgetting them by the time I want to record it.  It's kind of amazing that I remembered it this time around.  I got about 1:15 worth of music from it but feel too tired to continue expanding upon it just yet.  I was able to record everything that I had planned out in my own dream though.  For now, I decided to call the song "The Tune Within My Dreams" and it seems appropriate enough.  I'm hoping to expand it and use it in a RPG I want to develop in the future.  I thought I'd write about it right now so that in the future, when I finish it, I'll look back on this post and remember that the song all began inside my own dream.

So it's my friend's Birthday tomorrow and I wanted to treat him to dinner this past weekend.  Rather than just a regular hang-out, he had the idea of renting Destiny for the PS3, set up his PS3 next to mine and rush through the story together over the weekend.  I loved the idea and so we set off to finish the FPS-MMORPG together.  It took both Saturday and Sunday in order to finish.  The best way to describe our reaction to the game is that "we complained about the game the entire time we played, but it did have its moments."  There's a lot of things we didn't like and only a few things we did like.  So the game turned out to be rather disappointing for him, but kind of predictable to me since I've already seen gameplay footages of it.

This is what we liked about the game:
+ Some very intense moments of combat and boss fights
+ I liked some of the music
+ Certain abilities were really cool
+ Controls were tight and felt really good overall
+ The graphics were nice and the environment was beautiful

Here are things we complained about (as much as I can remember):
- From the very beginning to the very end, we had no idea what the !@#$ the story was about
- Every character in the game threw out random terms expecting us to know what they mean
- The game had no personality.  Characters were boring, story was confusing, and fights were generic
- Navigation was horrendous.  No in-game maps and quest beacon constantly needs to be brought up
- Loot is a rarity.  Very few boxes, enemies rarely drop them, and even bosses don't give any
- So much waiting.  Unskippable cut-scenes, drawn out dialogues, waiting for something to happen
- Among all that waiting is load times.  Loading the map, loading the next area, loading the menu
- PvP felt extremely unbalanced and meant only for max leveled and geared out players
- Most weapons felt useless and only a select few were practical
- Open-world quests are menial tasks and don't feel rewarding
- Some grinding is required to advance to the next story mission
- Even after you reach level 15 for the subclass, you have to level that class up to do any skills
- Strike missions take very long if you're under-leveled and under-geared. So more grinding/farming
- Most boss fights were bullet sponges with a LOT of infinitely spawning minions; very annoying
- The game wasn't very memorable

Despite all that, we didn't regret it.  It was a fun weekend and my friend hasn't played videogames in a very long time.  I think Destiny is all about gameplay and end-game content.  I can see how it can be fun doing the strike missions and all, but you'd definitely need some friends to play with.  I don't think I could have as much fun playing with random people online.