Furi was a game I almost passed up on because I've played a lot of games over the past few years claiming to be hardcore, difficult or the next "Dark Souls" and ended up feeling disappointed. Furi seemed like another one of those games that was unnecessarily frustrating for the sake of difficulty. What a lot of designers don't quite understand is that players aren't looking for a game to purposely make them die over and over again with surprises or unrealistic expectations, but rather a game that genuinely challenges the player in overcoming realistic obstacles; failure is just part of the process towards success. Furi is thankfully the latter.
I kept an eye on Furi and eventually a friend picked up the game for me for Christmas a couple months ago. I was still weary about the game and wasn't sure if I was going to enjoy it, but a lot of people that have played it kept talking about the music. I listened to the music for quite a bit before playing the game and eventually bought the soundtrack. Much like other videogame music, I had a better appreciation for each and every song after I completed the game as they each hold a strong association with events and bosses. So what exactly is Furi? Furi is an Action game that pits the player against one boss fight after another. No exploration, no pre-boss stages (with a semi-exception to one boss), no new power-ups or character levels, just a simple set of tools against meticulously designed bosses. The player can slash with the sword, do a charged sword attack, shoot, shoot with a charged shot, parry, and dodge. The objective is always the same throughout the game: survive and kill. Each boss has between 4-7 phases (with one boss at 9 phases). The player has 3 lives for each fight and regains a lost life for each phase they successfully finish. Losing all 3 lives means starting the boss fight over. The bosses are designed in the way old games bosses: with patterns. With the ability for players to observe, memorize and exploit patterns, there is little room to call foul play, cheap deaths, and unfair difficulty. Attacks are projected and can be identified and reacted to even on the first encounter (mostly). It is with these design choices in mind that I accepted the challenges and forgive the difficulty of the game. Besides the engaging gameplay and sublime soundtrack, the game has a strong sense of identity with each boss having a unique personality, theme and trait that makes the fight against each one so memorable. I'd like to discuss each of the boss fights briefly.
[Boss Fights] - Discussed based on Furi (Normal) Difficulty
1) The Chain
Boss Theme: 6:24 by Danger
Also known as the Tutorial boss. He tortures The Stranger (player character) and is the jailor that keeps him there. He's the only boss I fought and finished in Furier (Hard difficulty) mode and is way different. In Tutorial, he has a lot less attacks, isn't as fast, and is rather predictable so that the player can get accustomed to the game's mechanics. He has simple attacks and his dialogue is the stereotypical "you're weak, I'm strong" demeanor which seems rather silly when going against him in Normal difficulty. His boss theme made me get really into the fight though.
2) The Strap
Boss Theme: Enraged by Carpenter Brut
Ah, Carpenter Brut. Another reason I knew I'd like the music is when I heard he contributed to the soundtrack. The Strap is actually another prisoner, but is also a guardian to keep The Stranger from leaving. Her attacks involve a lot of homing bullets and a giant laser. Despite being just the 2nd boss in the game, she's incredibly quick and will dodge a lot of the player's attacks unless she had just finished using her laser or some other action that binds her to a position. The laser attack on the last phase gave me a bit of trouble. This boss fight teaches the player in a subtle manner to get behind cover when possible and to dodge effectively.
3) The Line
Walking Theme: A picture in motion by Waveshaper
Boss Theme: Wisdom of rage
This is where I felt a bit of the aesthetics didn't quite match up with the music and theme the game had set thus far. It was trippy to see The Stranger walking around, upside-down while platforms came together to progress him forward. But the more natural look of rocks (earth) made the environment look more rustic as opposed to its technology infused areas from the first two bosses. This was a pretty cool boss fight where the boss sat in the middle while the player had to break through reflecting walls and dodging dangerous waves of energy and projectiles. He eventually fills the screen with bullets and slows down time around him to a halt while quickly ambushing you with melee attacks. Unlike The Chain (who was arrogant) and The Strap (who was spastic), The Line was a calm old man who evoked a sense of patience and confidence. This boss fight forced the player to use their ranged attack and subtly teaches them to use it more often in fights.
4) The Scale
Walking Theme: Unraveled by Lorn
Boss Theme: Set me free by Lorn
This boss wasn't too bad, but I still found it a bit annoying. The boss has a strong theme of neon green and it certainly leaves an impression. The boss shoots lines of green projectiles that leave a trail behind. Not only does it do damage, but it also disorients the player which makes the screen go a bit wobbly. The Scale can duplicate itself into many images which shoot at the player. He has projectiles that can split and shoot out and warp itself back in. He can fill the screen with horizontal and vertical lines throughout the stage, limiting the amount of space the player can move in. It's also one of the bosses that does quite a few melee combos which forces the player to learn how to do consecutive parries. The boss theme is quite minimalistic and has a strong tie to the look of the stage, but it's probably my least favorite one to listen to.
5) The Hand
Boss Theme: What we fight for by Carpenter Brut
I started questioning the story and my own playable character at this boss fight. What is this game even about? Who is this character I'm controlling? Is he actually the bad guy and everyone else I'm fighting the good guys? The boss fight begins with The Hand speaking to his son and then speaks to The Stranger, saying that his purpose in fighting gives him strength that is beyond The Stranger's. And then you kill him.....This boss fight was much more intimate as it involved a lot more parries and melee strikes. The stage is smaller, the attacks from the boss are a lot more dangerous, but he's hilariously exploitable with ranged attacks (at least on Normal difficulty). The look of this area really didn't match the music and the theme the game had set itself up for thus far. The fight was okay and the music is (surprisingly) only okay (considering it's Carpenter Brut) and so this fight was one of the least memorable ones in the game.
6) The Song
Boss Theme: Make this right by The Toxic Avenger
This was, by far, my favorite boss fight in the game. It was highly engaging as there were minimal invincible phases for the boss, lots of movement, heavy use of ranged attacks, challenging and beautiful bullet patterns, and one heck of a boss theme (I love this song). It often bugs me when boss fights have phases of invincibility and requires the player to dodge the onslaught before being allowed to fight back. A lot of the bosses in this game has that, but they're usually not long enough for it to really make me hate the fight. But this particular boss fight doesn't have the "your turn, my turn" design and really has both the player and the boss go at it the entire time. It was a boss fight that really got me pumped up and excited. It's also the only point in the game where you can get an alternate ending. It obviously cuts the game in half and you can definitely continue again from that point to finish the game (or at least I think so, I didn't do this ending), but it's an interesting feature to allow the player to actually choose to take The Song's offer in staying there to prevent further killing and possible annihilation of her people (although that probably still wouldn't matter after I found out the true ending). The only thing I would like to criticize is that the design of The Song is kind of dopey. I like the visor coming down in front of her eyes, that was cool. But her wings look really dumb.
7) The Burst
Walking Theme: Love and madness by Scattle
Boss Theme: You're mine by Carpenter Brut
Oh man, this was a frustrating boss. The arena is possibly the largest one in the game and you have to play a game of hide and seek with an elite sniper who's capable of one-shotting you. While you search for her in this gigantic arena, there are tons of drones constantly shooting at you or ramming into you. Once you do find her, you have to beat her down hard enough to have her duel you. She's fast, sneaky, and can easily restart a phase with just one shot. At one point, she's go invisible and you'll have to react to the shining effects of attacks and sound effects. I do like how unique this boss fight was and it was certainly memorable, but man she was a pain.
8) The Edge
Walking Theme: A big day by Kn1ght
Boss Theme: Something memorable by Kn1ght
This was the hardest boss for me to get through and possibly the most frustrating in the main game. Upon starting the fight, I lost all three lives in a mere 16 seconds. I was flabbergasted by how the difficulty spiked up to an almost unreasonable degree. How this fight worked was that the player can't attack the boss. Any attempts to swipe at the boss was met with a painful counter. The only method to defeat The Edge (as far as I know) is to parry a full melee combo from him before hitting him once. Any extra attacks beyond that one attack is also met with a painful counter. What makes this difficult is that his attacks come out quickly and some of them are delayed. If you get in the rhythm of parrying each of his attacks, it tricks you into parrying a delayed attack. Regular attacks take off 2 bars of health while delayed attacks can take off 4 bars (from a total of 10 bars). There might be a signal to tell what combo he uses, but I couldn't figure it out and only reacted as best as I could. Sometimes it's a single attack, sometimes is a triple, sometimes it's a 4-hit attack, sometimes the 3rd strike is delayed; it was all very frustrating trying to keep up. I screamed, I complained, but in the end I got through it. It took a little over an hour to defeat The Edge. It wasn't until after I beat the game where I had an appreciation for this particular boss fight. The last two bosses weren't nearly as difficult as this one and this boss forced me to become better at parrying which made it incredibly useful for the DLC bosses and Furier difficulty. I joked with a friend on how this boss fight is practically asking you to be Daigo Umehara by doing a full parry and executing a counter attack. I believe this boss fight is a reference to the fight between Musashi Miyamoto and Sasaki Kojiro as the first thing The Edge says to the player is "You sure took your time". Musashi had purposely arrived to his official duel against Sasaki late to upset his opponent and cause distress to his mental state. Musashi had arrived to his duel by a fisherman's boat and had carved a bokken (wooden sword) out of a boat oar, the weapon The Edge uses to fight you with on his last few phases. The Edge would often mutter about giving him something memorable and the fact that I spent so long learning his pattern and getting down the timing of the parries made this a memorable fight for me, a skill I needed to fight against the DLC boss and The Chain on Furier difficulty.
9) The Beat
Walking Theme: A monster by Waveshaper
Boss Theme: You are the end by Waveshaper
I love this boss fight on so many different levels. This is one of the best walking themes in the game right next to "A picture in motion". Within the story, this last guardian asked to be the last hope for their world in keeping The Stranger from escaping. She is described as inadequate and powerless, but was given the position to humor her. As the boss fight begins, I immediately love the boss theme music as much as the walking theme music. I also quickly realize that it has a sort of stage, as in you have to get through some obstacles before you can face the boss. The Beat knows she's weak against direct confrontation, so her strategy is to run away from you while blasting a bunch of projectiles to take you out. The thing about this is that the patterns are kind of challenging, but not particularly difficult. This is a deliberate choice by the designers (I believe) to drive at a point in the story and for gameplay's sake, to give the player a rest after an exhausting fight against The Edge. When you get to the last phase, The Beat is already limping and begging for her life. Although I questioned it once when fighting The Hand, it was at this point in the game that I really questioned "what am I fighting for?" I felt so bad and questioned the morality of The Stranger, even if I didn't have a choice in the matter if I wanted to progress forward. It was such a strong message and memorable moment that didn't require a long winded dialogue as it was able to convey the message through the gameplay.
?) Walking out
Walking Theme: My only chance by The Toxic Avenger
This was the song that I heard that made me decide that I wanted to buy the soundtrack. As The Stranger walked out of the prison and into a beautiful field of green grass, you see life and color fade around him as he made his way towards the tall building in the distance. As that happens, the credits started rolling. I was confused and kept saying "there's no way that's the end of the game!" The story still didn't make sense and to leave the game's last boss with The Beat seemed odd. After the credits, a cutscene showing The Stranger getting on a jet pack took him into space where he arrives at a space station filled with other beings that looked exactly like him. He reaches a room with a large projection of a head what seemingly is an computer speaking to him. The computer welcomes "Rider" back home and asks for information on the planet and whether it was an adequate place for them to assimilate. It is at this point where the player can choose to fulfill "Rider's" original directive to confirm assimilation on the planet, or to oppose the computer and destroy the space station. Everything that led up to this suddenly makes sense: All the bosses you fought weren't keeping The Stranger inside the prison just because of the people he's killed, but because they're preventing the annihilation of their people. The Voice (rabbit man who tells you about each guardian) freed The Stranger in the beginning of the game and had him fight each of these guardians to understand their views and bet on The Stranger to set things right. Or you could just assimilate the planet and avoid fighting the last boss.
10) The Star
Boss Theme: 7:53, 8:02, 19:06, 19:07 by Danger
This wasn't so much a Boss fight as it was an endurance test. While shooting lasers at different weapon parts, the player much survive a barrage of bullets, lasers, and physical attacks to bring down the space station. I can't remember if it took me 2 or 3 tries, but wasn't nearly as hard as fighting The Edge. It was certainly exhausting though as each phase lasts a really long time and the last phase has quite a few phases of attack patterns within itself before you can finish the boss off.
DLC 1) The Flame
Boss Theme: Shambles by Scattle
What can I say about this boss? He's a pain. Lots of tricky melee combos and bullet patterns not seen in the main game. He took a little under an hour to learn his pattern just enough for me to beat him. The hour spent fighting The Edge certainly helped.
DLC 2) Bernard
Boss Theme: Slight remix of 6:24 by Danger
HA, I tried a few times and immediately gave up. Not only does this boss have ridiculously fast teleporting attacks, they also have 9 phases and no longer wanted to torture myself in learning all the patterns of a boss that would probably take me hours.
Overall, Furi is a fantastic game and I enjoyed it. I would probably have put in the time to try to get through Furier difficulty, but seeing how The Chain took me around an hour to beat, I decided I would stop there as I need to get around to playing other games.
Showing posts with label Videogame. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Videogame. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 24, 2018
Thursday, August 17, 2017
Let's talk about Final Fantasy Type-0 HD [SPOILERS]
I finally completed NieR: Automata this past weekend and Final Fantasy Type-0 HD on Monday. Although I want to talk about NieR: Automata, I feel eager to talk about Final Fantasy Type-0 HD first. NieR: Automata was a great game and I had very little to complain about other than some parts of the game being a bit of a time waster. FF Type-0 HD; however, had a LOT of problems and yet it left quite an impression on me. So let's get to it.
Final Fantasy Type-0 had originally released on the Playstation Portable system and was never brought to the Western market. I was excited about this Final Fantasy game that seemed like it was full of action and combat. Thankfully, they announced a Final Fantasy Type-0 HD version that was going to release for PS4 and PC. I had waited for a sale and picked it up for PC only to realize that my computer couldn't run it very well. I had gotten a new computer in the past year and so continued playing it on and off until I decided to really sit down and get through it the past two week.
Final Fantasy Type-0 is part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis series, which means it takes place in the same universe as Final Fantasy XIII. FF Type-0 takes place in the land of Orience where the regions of the land are divided into four nations, each blessed by a Crystal that grants its people powers. Like many other works of fiction that talks about divided land, one nation wants more power from the other nations which leads to political strife. What I believe the game wanted to achieve through its story was the depiction of human struggle on both sides of a battle, a common theme among stories of war.
The game starts off with scenes of an invasion to a city. A young man wanders the battlefield and asks around for someone in a red cape. Shortly after, soldiers march in and start blowing up buildings, impaling the man's comrades in front of him and getting shot in the process. The man is saved by his Chocobo and finds a sword to fight off the remaining soldier. He continues searching for the one with a red cape only to have the Chocobo shot and have soldiers surround him. At the last moment, he yells out for the boy he was looking for. The one called Ace fights off the soldiers and runs to the man named Izana to try to heal him. But it's too late and Ace's healing magic takes no effect to the severely injured and bloodied Izana. Up to this point, I don't really call that much blood (if any) being depicted in a Final Fantasy game. The one's dressed similar to Ace fights off the remaining soldiers in the area and turns to Izana. As Ace and company stood there, they witnessed a dying man and his Chocobo companion as they cry out in agony of not wanting to die. This opening felt so real, as in it didn't feel like a poorly written scene for a videogame like most cut-scenes in videogames. It was a surprising opening and I was taken aback by the grim scene from a Final Fantasy game. Despite this, I was excited to see how emotionally involving and deep the story was going to be throughout the game.
Well, I was pretty disappointed in that regards because everything after that opening took a sharp 180 turn into the other direction where the writing, characters, and delivery of dialogue were awkward, cheesy, humorous, and/or abrupt. This is just story we're talking about. In terms of gameplay, it's a game with good ideas mixed with a myriad of poor design choices.
[Pros of the game/Things I liked]
+ Characters: First and foremost, I want to talk about the characters of the game. With 14 characters all dressed the same way, I didn't think there would be much to distinguish the characters by other than the weapons they used. But as I played the game, I grew fond of each of the characters because of their specialty on the battlefield as well as their personality. I will admit now that the characters don't have much depth to them, that they're trope-driven, and that they're hardly believable in the scope of reality (considering how real the characters felt in the opening); however, the interactions between the characters were some of my favorite moments from the game.
[Class Zero]: An Elite group of individuals that carry out dangerous missions
= Ace (Cards): Ace is often depicted as the leader of the group, even though he really isn't. He's young, but has an air of maturity with a calm and collected way of thinking. He's the voice of reason in the group and the one that tries to keep everyone together.
= Deuce (Flute): Deuce is kind of hard to keep alive since she isn't much of an offensive character, but I like to have her in my party and buff the other two characters as it helps a lot. She's soft spoken and kind to those around her. She's among one of the girls that gossip within the group.
= Trey (Bow): Trey isn't exactly arrogant, but he definitely likes to show off his vast knowledge. I find it funny in one of the study events where their Commanding Officer asks them a questions, he's first to answer but answers incorrectly. When Cater starts experiencing cases of déjà vu and gets scared because of it, she turns to Trey for help. He could've said "it's probably nothing" or ask "do you feel ill in any way?" to reassure Cater that she was okay. Instead, he goes on a long winded explanation of what might cause it and the history and research that goes into that topic.
Trey was a really useful character and saved me a lot in missions with the ability to take down flying or unreachable enemies as he has the longest range in the game with lots of damage behind it.
= Cater (Magicite Pistol): She was a good support damage to have in the party as she's able to attack a decent amount of times at a mid-range without putting herself in danger and having to worry about healing her. She's blunt and headstrong so she doesn't hesitate to speak her mind, even if it might upset the people around her. She experiences déjà vu and didn't understand why she feels like so many events have happened before. It is revealed in a secret clip after beating the game that they have all looped the many events of the war over 600 million times.
= Cinque (Mace): I do not like playing Cinque as she's slow with attacks taking forever to bring out and recover from, but she's pretty awesome to have in the party because she's sometimes able to knock an enemy down or stun them. Why did they have a tiny little girl wield such a large and heavy weapon anyways? Cinque's voice makes me laugh. Her English voice (It's Cristina Vee, I can hear some Noel in the voice) makes her always sound out of it, slow and/or ditsy. Her Japanese voice makes her sound playful and child-like. She's the kind of girl who's in her own little world, so that's kind of what they're trying to go for. I didn't really like playing her, but she had a fun personality and liked her interactions with everyone. I also like how she gives endearing nicknames to everyone. Mog=Moglin, Queen=Queenie, Rem=Remski, etc.
= Sice (Scythe): Loud mouthed and vulgar, Sice is very much a tomboy. Her attacks kind of go all over the place as she dives forwards when she swings, but I really like the damage behind it. Her straight-forward, unabashed personality can come off as rude and conceited. But she shows that she expects a lot out of herself and doesn't want to rely on others. This still doesn't stop Trey from lecturing her about all the things he knows
= Seven (Whipblade): Seven looks pretty much like Lightning, but with silver hair rather than pink hair. Seven has a decent range in attack and damage, and she also can get an ability that has three different elements. Seven is the big-sister type character. She's mature and reliable which makes her a popular upperclassmen at the academy. One interesting thing about Seven's outfit is that she wears spats under her skirt because she often twirls upside-down with her whipblade to attack all around her.
= Eight (Knuckles): It might be just me, but I feel like Eight didn't have much of a presence within the group. I did take note of him whenever I used him in fights as he has this one move that lets him continuously punch an enemy as long as he has the energy to keep doing it. Personality wise, I feel like he was the most forgettable.
= Nine (Spear): Nine is brash, hot-headed, and dumb, yet I like him so much. If I were to choose who the most memorable male character was from the original 12, it'd be Nine. With the Japanese voice, he's the stereotypical meathead who wants things simple and would much rather fight things out rather than negotiate. With the English voice, he's an awkward dude who can barely speak correctly saying "hey" and "yo" a lot and it's entertaining to watch any scene he has a speaking role in. I mean, who even talks like that?
He has pretty good burst damage and defense which helps when you're left with ranged units that need protection.
= Jack (Katana): I didn't like Jack at first. With his weapon out, he has the slowest walk in the game. But then I thought of it in Monster Hunter terms and sheathed my Katana whenever I wasn't close enough and then attack to bring it out when I was in range. After doing this and utilizing dodge more often, he quickly became my favorite melee character to play. He has high damage and can quickly counter after dodging out of the way. He has a unique style of play that was a bit more challenging but satisfying. Jack is the class clown of Class Zero and is full of optimism. His easy going attitude is a nice contrast to every else who seems to be a lot more serious other than Cinque.
= Queen (Longsword): Queen is the studious and intelligent one of Class Zero. She emanates a sort of elegance that matches her cool and collected mind. It's strange that her weapon is a Longsword when her stance and style of fighting matches those who wield rapiers. She's fast and can quickly close the distance which makes her a good duelist and for taking out multiple weaker units.
= King (Dual Handguns): He's the strong silent type but is very manly when speaking. He can be pretty useful against close to mid-range enemies that fly or unreachable by melee characters. It's especially satisfying kicking an enemy down and shooting them while they're on the floor.
= Machina Kunagiri (Twin Rapiers): They did a very poor job developing this character. There was quite a focus on this character in how he changes, how he grows, his relationship with the rest of the characters, but they were all so abrupt and scripted that he ended up being one of the most hated characters of the cast. In terms of combat, he was nice to have around to take down enemies with large health pools. But as a character in the story, he didn't quite seem realistic and his motives were confusing. Half way through the game, he disappears and isn't even playable on main missions.
= Rem Tokimiya (Twin Daggers): Much like Machina, she was supposed to have a big role in the story. But she was a rather boring character. Even worse, she didn't feel particularly strong in combat either. Her attacks were somewhat fast, but were so weak that it didn't compensate for it. At the very least, she was the "kind girl" who watched out for everyone with Machina in particular. So she wasn't a character I could really hate.
= Kurasame Susaya: The Commanding Officier of Class Zero. When he was introduced, he demonstrated his experience and abilities when Nine, Cater and Ace attacked him while he had total control over the situation without a bit of hesitation. It shows how powerful he was and that he's really "cool". Other than one other scene where he shows concern over the members of Class Zero, there were no other mentions of his character that would make the player understand who he was, why he's important and powerful, and his impact with the rest of Class Zero. When he was sent out to battle, all he did was sacrifice his power for the l'cie to summon an eidolon (really strong entity) and that was the end of his character. What I found out was that there is a manga that tells the whole story of his time at the academy, his contributions to the nation, the comrades he lost, and the sacrifices he made to led him to become the "Ice Reaper". He was a really cool character that was entirely overlooked in the game.
+ Music: The main theme had a nice melody that was memorable, but it's played in over a dozen different variations throughout the game. Overall, the music was pretty good and it was a pivotal element to the entire experience of the game. It's definitely not as memorable as the music from other Final Fantasy games, but I enjoyed it and it brought out the atmosphere and immersion of the game.
+ The School Theme: The setting of the game being set in a school was done in Final Fantasy 8 and I really liked it in that game as well. It was somewhat nostalgic of FF8 to see the characters be part of a school with other students, instructors, and such. It felt welcoming and familiar to come back to the school grounds after each mission and finding new events around the campus.
+ Combat: In all honesty, combat wasn't that great yet I enjoyed it so much. Setting up my party, choosing specific builds for my characters, and fighting off waves of enemies in real-time was a nice change in pace from the other Final Fantasy games. And since there's 14 characters to play, it never felt too repetitive.
+ Voice Acting: This is probably not a good thing, but I enjoyed how bad the English voice acting was. Having learned what it's like for voice actors who work on localized games, I can't blame them specifically for a lot of the bad voice acting. A lot of lines in the game don't feel like they have the correct contextual situation in mind when they're delivered which is common in a lot of localized games when voice actors are given the script but not the situation. This ends up with the English voice overs having some interesting results such as each character's personality exaggerated through their voices. The Japanese voices are quite stereotypical of each of their respective characters, so it matches up pretty well. So with the Japanese voices, it's not as entertaining, but it's certainly more believable thus more immersive.
+ Cinematics: Although the game was originally released on PSP, all the major cinematics that weren't in-game scripting were pre-rendered clips created in order to have PS3-like quality to them. During these Cinematics, movements were natural, voice acting were (usually) contextually correct, and the moments had impact. This is quite a difference from the in-game dialogues and scripted motions that looked awkward and jarring. The best Cinematics that held a lot of meaning was the very beginning and the very end of the game.
+ Humor/Dark Themes: With the way the game started out, I didn't expect much humor. But there are many moments that were so awkward or out of place that it's hard not to laugh (like anything that Nine says in English voice). There were moments in the game where the darker themes felt like it held weight and meaning behind the story, and yet so much of the game's story and character development was such a mess that it didn't do it well enough. The few events where it did have impact left an impression on me.
+ The "What-if" Ending: Even though this is the fake ending, it was cute and fun. I loved it so much. This ending showed what the lives of Class Zero would be like if there weren't a war going on and they got to enjoy their school lives. This makes it that much more harder to accept the true ending.
[Cons of the game/Things I did not like]
- Free Time: I actually liked the "Free Time" the first few times I had to go through it. You get to talk to your fellow schoolmates and see different events that ranged from informative, to funny, to sometimes being a waste of time. As the game goes on, there are less events to trigger and a lot more side quests you can do. These side quests were probably meant to get the player to go out and earn some levels; however, they were long, boring, and tedious without the rewards to compensate for them. Free Time became a waste of time and I ended up going straight to main missions after triggering all the events.
- Side Quests: As I mentioned, side quests just didn't feel worth the time and effort to do. I did all the side quests the first few times and realized how long it took to do them while not really being properly rewarded for them for the time I spent on them. It certainly felt like filler/padding to extend the time spent on the game and it just wasn't that fun.
- Conquering missions: I didn't expect to see a game of tower defense in an Action-RPG, but there it was. You choose one character to move around the overworld and lead your army into the opposing faction's city to weaken its defenses before invading it. It's a tedious process that requires you getting knocked down over and over again. It's clunky, boring and annoying.
- Slow and abrupt pacing: Perhaps it's because it was originally developed for the PSP, but cinematics and events tend to fade in and out a lot of scenes. When it's not doing that, the narration for the story is long winded and boring. It's trying hard to drive home the idea of "war is bad and everyone is affected" and it loses its audience through the droning of narration rather than just showing it through action or gameplay (like the beginning cinematic of Izana dying. That was powerful and had meaning).
- Lazy on story details: I had a similar complaint to Final Fantasy XIII when I read all the notes in-game and thought that the notes did a better job at telling the story than the game itself. That should never be the case for a videogame. At the very least, FF13's story was easy to understand even if it was told poorly. With FF Type-0, the story details are cryptic and sometimes never mentioned in game and can only be known to those who read everything from the notes. And even then, character development is non-existent for some which led to some dumb moments.
- No connection to characters: I did say I liked the characters, but unfortunately the game didn't really do much for them in terms of character development. Very little backstory, motives, and changes are given to characters throughout the game which made it difficult to connect with them. Lots of characters die throughout the game, and yet a lot of times it's hard to really feel sad for them when we barely got to know them at all. At one point in the game, Class Zero's little merchant girl Aria (who is hostage to the enemy) suddenly has a connection to one of the enemies. There is no build up to that moment, it just reveals itself and happens. The player confronts this one enemy multiple times and yet knows little to nothing about him. He tells Aria to go home and that there will be a lot of fighting and she refuses to go home and tells him not to die. Just when things are about to end and he was about to retreat from the fight, he finds a bomb near him set by one of his comrades without permission. He sacrifices himself and prevents the bomb from needlessly killing that much more lives. It sucks, but who was he? This happens quite a few times throughout the game and it just felt like cheap moments to try to make it feel deep.
- Level requirement spike: For about 35%-45% of the first half of the game, there is little need to grind for levels in order to get through the main missions. But at one point of the game, the recommended level spikes up by a large amount. As I've mentioned before, side-quests are boring and not really worth it. So the only other options is to either go into the arena to train, have a character go into secret training (and you can use an exploit to level them extremely quickly), or replay a previous main mission in order to level the characters. But then it presents another problem in the game:
- Leveling characters up: Characters level up individually. Only three characters can be in the party at a time. There are 14 characters in the game. This means you have grind levels for 5 separate groups every time they're under-leveled. With the amount of levels needed at that difficulty spike in needing higher level characters, it feels like an aggressive waste of time to repeatedly fight the same enemies over and over for hour on end before you can progress the story.
- The last area: Despite over-leveling my characters to avoid any further difficulty in confrontation, the game still decides to throw enemies that take forever to kill with some of them possessing the ability to kill you in two hits should the 2nd hit land shortly after the first one. I was well over 10 levels above the enemies and still took quite a bit of time to take down each enemy across the two dozen rooms laid out at the last area.
- The last boss: As if the game didn't waste enough of your time already, the last boss goes on with his soliloquy as your characters stumble around with the little bit of strength they have left to fight and overpowered gargantuan of a monster as it takes a swing at them every once in a while to take them out of their misery. After everyone falls in battle, another cinematic takes place and then each member is revived and controlled by the player. Each of those characters can't be killed and can continue to attack the monster until they take a set amount of health away before getting knocked out and switched out with another character. This process takes a LONG time as the boss is level 99. Even with invincibility, the characters can still be knocked around. It wasn't fun, it didn't have the dramatic effect that I'm sure they were going for when they designed this, and I did not feel satisfied after beating it.
- The True Ending: I don't think there was ever a more painful ending to watch from a Final Fantasy game than this one (except Crisis Core, everyone keeps mentioning, but I haven't played it yet). Much like the opening cinematic of the game, the graphics are pre-rendered and it looked really nice. The motions were more natural and the quality of the voice acting was much better (although it was still not very good in English). Also like the opening cinematic, it felt very real and meaningful as the twelves characters that I got to know and love are now facing the reality that they're dying from the damage done to their phantoma (kind of like their soul). They all begin to cry and share each other's sorrow. As that happens, Ace sings a song that calms everyone down. They didn't want to be sad and start imaging what life after the war would be like now that it's over. They laugh and smile as they wonder what kinds of places they can visit and things they can learn making for a hopeful future. As the credits roll, Machina and Rem burst through the classroom doors and find their former comrades and friends had already passed as they lay next to each other next to their weapons erected with their capes attached flailing to the wind like a flag. It was such a painful moment and the biggest slap in the face was the Machina survived. I can't say that the ending was bad, but it made me feel bad. It was a sad conclusion as it did off one of the main things I liked about the game: the 12 main members of Class Zero.
Despite it all, I'm glad I played through the game. It's definitely not one I could recommend and not a game I want to play again any time soon. But still, I'm glad they localized it and I got to play through it.
Final Fantasy Type-0 had originally released on the Playstation Portable system and was never brought to the Western market. I was excited about this Final Fantasy game that seemed like it was full of action and combat. Thankfully, they announced a Final Fantasy Type-0 HD version that was going to release for PS4 and PC. I had waited for a sale and picked it up for PC only to realize that my computer couldn't run it very well. I had gotten a new computer in the past year and so continued playing it on and off until I decided to really sit down and get through it the past two week.
Final Fantasy Type-0 is part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis series, which means it takes place in the same universe as Final Fantasy XIII. FF Type-0 takes place in the land of Orience where the regions of the land are divided into four nations, each blessed by a Crystal that grants its people powers. Like many other works of fiction that talks about divided land, one nation wants more power from the other nations which leads to political strife. What I believe the game wanted to achieve through its story was the depiction of human struggle on both sides of a battle, a common theme among stories of war.
The game starts off with scenes of an invasion to a city. A young man wanders the battlefield and asks around for someone in a red cape. Shortly after, soldiers march in and start blowing up buildings, impaling the man's comrades in front of him and getting shot in the process. The man is saved by his Chocobo and finds a sword to fight off the remaining soldier. He continues searching for the one with a red cape only to have the Chocobo shot and have soldiers surround him. At the last moment, he yells out for the boy he was looking for. The one called Ace fights off the soldiers and runs to the man named Izana to try to heal him. But it's too late and Ace's healing magic takes no effect to the severely injured and bloodied Izana. Up to this point, I don't really call that much blood (if any) being depicted in a Final Fantasy game. The one's dressed similar to Ace fights off the remaining soldiers in the area and turns to Izana. As Ace and company stood there, they witnessed a dying man and his Chocobo companion as they cry out in agony of not wanting to die. This opening felt so real, as in it didn't feel like a poorly written scene for a videogame like most cut-scenes in videogames. It was a surprising opening and I was taken aback by the grim scene from a Final Fantasy game. Despite this, I was excited to see how emotionally involving and deep the story was going to be throughout the game.
Well, I was pretty disappointed in that regards because everything after that opening took a sharp 180 turn into the other direction where the writing, characters, and delivery of dialogue were awkward, cheesy, humorous, and/or abrupt. This is just story we're talking about. In terms of gameplay, it's a game with good ideas mixed with a myriad of poor design choices.
[Pros of the game/Things I liked]
+ Characters: First and foremost, I want to talk about the characters of the game. With 14 characters all dressed the same way, I didn't think there would be much to distinguish the characters by other than the weapons they used. But as I played the game, I grew fond of each of the characters because of their specialty on the battlefield as well as their personality. I will admit now that the characters don't have much depth to them, that they're trope-driven, and that they're hardly believable in the scope of reality (considering how real the characters felt in the opening); however, the interactions between the characters were some of my favorite moments from the game.
[Class Zero]: An Elite group of individuals that carry out dangerous missions
= Ace (Cards): Ace is often depicted as the leader of the group, even though he really isn't. He's young, but has an air of maturity with a calm and collected way of thinking. He's the voice of reason in the group and the one that tries to keep everyone together.
= Deuce (Flute): Deuce is kind of hard to keep alive since she isn't much of an offensive character, but I like to have her in my party and buff the other two characters as it helps a lot. She's soft spoken and kind to those around her. She's among one of the girls that gossip within the group.
= Trey (Bow): Trey isn't exactly arrogant, but he definitely likes to show off his vast knowledge. I find it funny in one of the study events where their Commanding Officer asks them a questions, he's first to answer but answers incorrectly. When Cater starts experiencing cases of déjà vu and gets scared because of it, she turns to Trey for help. He could've said "it's probably nothing" or ask "do you feel ill in any way?" to reassure Cater that she was okay. Instead, he goes on a long winded explanation of what might cause it and the history and research that goes into that topic.
Trey was a really useful character and saved me a lot in missions with the ability to take down flying or unreachable enemies as he has the longest range in the game with lots of damage behind it.
= Cater (Magicite Pistol): She was a good support damage to have in the party as she's able to attack a decent amount of times at a mid-range without putting herself in danger and having to worry about healing her. She's blunt and headstrong so she doesn't hesitate to speak her mind, even if it might upset the people around her. She experiences déjà vu and didn't understand why she feels like so many events have happened before. It is revealed in a secret clip after beating the game that they have all looped the many events of the war over 600 million times.
= Cinque (Mace): I do not like playing Cinque as she's slow with attacks taking forever to bring out and recover from, but she's pretty awesome to have in the party because she's sometimes able to knock an enemy down or stun them. Why did they have a tiny little girl wield such a large and heavy weapon anyways? Cinque's voice makes me laugh. Her English voice (It's Cristina Vee, I can hear some Noel in the voice) makes her always sound out of it, slow and/or ditsy. Her Japanese voice makes her sound playful and child-like. She's the kind of girl who's in her own little world, so that's kind of what they're trying to go for. I didn't really like playing her, but she had a fun personality and liked her interactions with everyone. I also like how she gives endearing nicknames to everyone. Mog=Moglin, Queen=Queenie, Rem=Remski, etc.
= Sice (Scythe): Loud mouthed and vulgar, Sice is very much a tomboy. Her attacks kind of go all over the place as she dives forwards when she swings, but I really like the damage behind it. Her straight-forward, unabashed personality can come off as rude and conceited. But she shows that she expects a lot out of herself and doesn't want to rely on others. This still doesn't stop Trey from lecturing her about all the things he knows
= Seven (Whipblade): Seven looks pretty much like Lightning, but with silver hair rather than pink hair. Seven has a decent range in attack and damage, and she also can get an ability that has three different elements. Seven is the big-sister type character. She's mature and reliable which makes her a popular upperclassmen at the academy. One interesting thing about Seven's outfit is that she wears spats under her skirt because she often twirls upside-down with her whipblade to attack all around her.
= Eight (Knuckles): It might be just me, but I feel like Eight didn't have much of a presence within the group. I did take note of him whenever I used him in fights as he has this one move that lets him continuously punch an enemy as long as he has the energy to keep doing it. Personality wise, I feel like he was the most forgettable.
= Nine (Spear): Nine is brash, hot-headed, and dumb, yet I like him so much. If I were to choose who the most memorable male character was from the original 12, it'd be Nine. With the Japanese voice, he's the stereotypical meathead who wants things simple and would much rather fight things out rather than negotiate. With the English voice, he's an awkward dude who can barely speak correctly saying "hey" and "yo" a lot and it's entertaining to watch any scene he has a speaking role in. I mean, who even talks like that?
He has pretty good burst damage and defense which helps when you're left with ranged units that need protection.
= Jack (Katana): I didn't like Jack at first. With his weapon out, he has the slowest walk in the game. But then I thought of it in Monster Hunter terms and sheathed my Katana whenever I wasn't close enough and then attack to bring it out when I was in range. After doing this and utilizing dodge more often, he quickly became my favorite melee character to play. He has high damage and can quickly counter after dodging out of the way. He has a unique style of play that was a bit more challenging but satisfying. Jack is the class clown of Class Zero and is full of optimism. His easy going attitude is a nice contrast to every else who seems to be a lot more serious other than Cinque.
= Queen (Longsword): Queen is the studious and intelligent one of Class Zero. She emanates a sort of elegance that matches her cool and collected mind. It's strange that her weapon is a Longsword when her stance and style of fighting matches those who wield rapiers. She's fast and can quickly close the distance which makes her a good duelist and for taking out multiple weaker units.
= King (Dual Handguns): He's the strong silent type but is very manly when speaking. He can be pretty useful against close to mid-range enemies that fly or unreachable by melee characters. It's especially satisfying kicking an enemy down and shooting them while they're on the floor.
= Machina Kunagiri (Twin Rapiers): They did a very poor job developing this character. There was quite a focus on this character in how he changes, how he grows, his relationship with the rest of the characters, but they were all so abrupt and scripted that he ended up being one of the most hated characters of the cast. In terms of combat, he was nice to have around to take down enemies with large health pools. But as a character in the story, he didn't quite seem realistic and his motives were confusing. Half way through the game, he disappears and isn't even playable on main missions.
= Rem Tokimiya (Twin Daggers): Much like Machina, she was supposed to have a big role in the story. But she was a rather boring character. Even worse, she didn't feel particularly strong in combat either. Her attacks were somewhat fast, but were so weak that it didn't compensate for it. At the very least, she was the "kind girl" who watched out for everyone with Machina in particular. So she wasn't a character I could really hate.
= Kurasame Susaya: The Commanding Officier of Class Zero. When he was introduced, he demonstrated his experience and abilities when Nine, Cater and Ace attacked him while he had total control over the situation without a bit of hesitation. It shows how powerful he was and that he's really "cool". Other than one other scene where he shows concern over the members of Class Zero, there were no other mentions of his character that would make the player understand who he was, why he's important and powerful, and his impact with the rest of Class Zero. When he was sent out to battle, all he did was sacrifice his power for the l'cie to summon an eidolon (really strong entity) and that was the end of his character. What I found out was that there is a manga that tells the whole story of his time at the academy, his contributions to the nation, the comrades he lost, and the sacrifices he made to led him to become the "Ice Reaper". He was a really cool character that was entirely overlooked in the game.
+ Music: The main theme had a nice melody that was memorable, but it's played in over a dozen different variations throughout the game. Overall, the music was pretty good and it was a pivotal element to the entire experience of the game. It's definitely not as memorable as the music from other Final Fantasy games, but I enjoyed it and it brought out the atmosphere and immersion of the game.
+ The School Theme: The setting of the game being set in a school was done in Final Fantasy 8 and I really liked it in that game as well. It was somewhat nostalgic of FF8 to see the characters be part of a school with other students, instructors, and such. It felt welcoming and familiar to come back to the school grounds after each mission and finding new events around the campus.
+ Combat: In all honesty, combat wasn't that great yet I enjoyed it so much. Setting up my party, choosing specific builds for my characters, and fighting off waves of enemies in real-time was a nice change in pace from the other Final Fantasy games. And since there's 14 characters to play, it never felt too repetitive.
+ Voice Acting: This is probably not a good thing, but I enjoyed how bad the English voice acting was. Having learned what it's like for voice actors who work on localized games, I can't blame them specifically for a lot of the bad voice acting. A lot of lines in the game don't feel like they have the correct contextual situation in mind when they're delivered which is common in a lot of localized games when voice actors are given the script but not the situation. This ends up with the English voice overs having some interesting results such as each character's personality exaggerated through their voices. The Japanese voices are quite stereotypical of each of their respective characters, so it matches up pretty well. So with the Japanese voices, it's not as entertaining, but it's certainly more believable thus more immersive.
+ Cinematics: Although the game was originally released on PSP, all the major cinematics that weren't in-game scripting were pre-rendered clips created in order to have PS3-like quality to them. During these Cinematics, movements were natural, voice acting were (usually) contextually correct, and the moments had impact. This is quite a difference from the in-game dialogues and scripted motions that looked awkward and jarring. The best Cinematics that held a lot of meaning was the very beginning and the very end of the game.
+ Humor/Dark Themes: With the way the game started out, I didn't expect much humor. But there are many moments that were so awkward or out of place that it's hard not to laugh (like anything that Nine says in English voice). There were moments in the game where the darker themes felt like it held weight and meaning behind the story, and yet so much of the game's story and character development was such a mess that it didn't do it well enough. The few events where it did have impact left an impression on me.
+ The "What-if" Ending: Even though this is the fake ending, it was cute and fun. I loved it so much. This ending showed what the lives of Class Zero would be like if there weren't a war going on and they got to enjoy their school lives. This makes it that much more harder to accept the true ending.
[Cons of the game/Things I did not like]
- Free Time: I actually liked the "Free Time" the first few times I had to go through it. You get to talk to your fellow schoolmates and see different events that ranged from informative, to funny, to sometimes being a waste of time. As the game goes on, there are less events to trigger and a lot more side quests you can do. These side quests were probably meant to get the player to go out and earn some levels; however, they were long, boring, and tedious without the rewards to compensate for them. Free Time became a waste of time and I ended up going straight to main missions after triggering all the events.
- Side Quests: As I mentioned, side quests just didn't feel worth the time and effort to do. I did all the side quests the first few times and realized how long it took to do them while not really being properly rewarded for them for the time I spent on them. It certainly felt like filler/padding to extend the time spent on the game and it just wasn't that fun.
- Conquering missions: I didn't expect to see a game of tower defense in an Action-RPG, but there it was. You choose one character to move around the overworld and lead your army into the opposing faction's city to weaken its defenses before invading it. It's a tedious process that requires you getting knocked down over and over again. It's clunky, boring and annoying.
- Slow and abrupt pacing: Perhaps it's because it was originally developed for the PSP, but cinematics and events tend to fade in and out a lot of scenes. When it's not doing that, the narration for the story is long winded and boring. It's trying hard to drive home the idea of "war is bad and everyone is affected" and it loses its audience through the droning of narration rather than just showing it through action or gameplay (like the beginning cinematic of Izana dying. That was powerful and had meaning).
- Lazy on story details: I had a similar complaint to Final Fantasy XIII when I read all the notes in-game and thought that the notes did a better job at telling the story than the game itself. That should never be the case for a videogame. At the very least, FF13's story was easy to understand even if it was told poorly. With FF Type-0, the story details are cryptic and sometimes never mentioned in game and can only be known to those who read everything from the notes. And even then, character development is non-existent for some which led to some dumb moments.
- No connection to characters: I did say I liked the characters, but unfortunately the game didn't really do much for them in terms of character development. Very little backstory, motives, and changes are given to characters throughout the game which made it difficult to connect with them. Lots of characters die throughout the game, and yet a lot of times it's hard to really feel sad for them when we barely got to know them at all. At one point in the game, Class Zero's little merchant girl Aria (who is hostage to the enemy) suddenly has a connection to one of the enemies. There is no build up to that moment, it just reveals itself and happens. The player confronts this one enemy multiple times and yet knows little to nothing about him. He tells Aria to go home and that there will be a lot of fighting and she refuses to go home and tells him not to die. Just when things are about to end and he was about to retreat from the fight, he finds a bomb near him set by one of his comrades without permission. He sacrifices himself and prevents the bomb from needlessly killing that much more lives. It sucks, but who was he? This happens quite a few times throughout the game and it just felt like cheap moments to try to make it feel deep.
- Level requirement spike: For about 35%-45% of the first half of the game, there is little need to grind for levels in order to get through the main missions. But at one point of the game, the recommended level spikes up by a large amount. As I've mentioned before, side-quests are boring and not really worth it. So the only other options is to either go into the arena to train, have a character go into secret training (and you can use an exploit to level them extremely quickly), or replay a previous main mission in order to level the characters. But then it presents another problem in the game:
- Leveling characters up: Characters level up individually. Only three characters can be in the party at a time. There are 14 characters in the game. This means you have grind levels for 5 separate groups every time they're under-leveled. With the amount of levels needed at that difficulty spike in needing higher level characters, it feels like an aggressive waste of time to repeatedly fight the same enemies over and over for hour on end before you can progress the story.
- The last area: Despite over-leveling my characters to avoid any further difficulty in confrontation, the game still decides to throw enemies that take forever to kill with some of them possessing the ability to kill you in two hits should the 2nd hit land shortly after the first one. I was well over 10 levels above the enemies and still took quite a bit of time to take down each enemy across the two dozen rooms laid out at the last area.
- The last boss: As if the game didn't waste enough of your time already, the last boss goes on with his soliloquy as your characters stumble around with the little bit of strength they have left to fight and overpowered gargantuan of a monster as it takes a swing at them every once in a while to take them out of their misery. After everyone falls in battle, another cinematic takes place and then each member is revived and controlled by the player. Each of those characters can't be killed and can continue to attack the monster until they take a set amount of health away before getting knocked out and switched out with another character. This process takes a LONG time as the boss is level 99. Even with invincibility, the characters can still be knocked around. It wasn't fun, it didn't have the dramatic effect that I'm sure they were going for when they designed this, and I did not feel satisfied after beating it.
- The True Ending: I don't think there was ever a more painful ending to watch from a Final Fantasy game than this one (except Crisis Core, everyone keeps mentioning, but I haven't played it yet). Much like the opening cinematic of the game, the graphics are pre-rendered and it looked really nice. The motions were more natural and the quality of the voice acting was much better (although it was still not very good in English). Also like the opening cinematic, it felt very real and meaningful as the twelves characters that I got to know and love are now facing the reality that they're dying from the damage done to their phantoma (kind of like their soul). They all begin to cry and share each other's sorrow. As that happens, Ace sings a song that calms everyone down. They didn't want to be sad and start imaging what life after the war would be like now that it's over. They laugh and smile as they wonder what kinds of places they can visit and things they can learn making for a hopeful future. As the credits roll, Machina and Rem burst through the classroom doors and find their former comrades and friends had already passed as they lay next to each other next to their weapons erected with their capes attached flailing to the wind like a flag. It was such a painful moment and the biggest slap in the face was the Machina survived. I can't say that the ending was bad, but it made me feel bad. It was a sad conclusion as it did off one of the main things I liked about the game: the 12 main members of Class Zero.
Despite it all, I'm glad I played through the game. It's definitely not one I could recommend and not a game I want to play again any time soon. But still, I'm glad they localized it and I got to play through it.
Thursday, November 3, 2016
Let's talk about Trillion: God of Destruction [SPOILERS]
Early this year, I had planned out some pre-orders for the first half of the year. I had a good idea of what games I wanted to pre-order and put them in, but then I saw a game called "Trillion: God of Destruction" and saw that it was developed by Compile Heart and published by Idea Factory. I seem to gravitate to a lot of the games that have these two companies involved ever since I got Hyperdimension Neptunia. Having a bit of faith in the names of those two companies, I went ahead and pre-ordered Trillion: God of Destruction as well. I did a little bit of research and saw that it was a Rogue-like Dungeon Crawler. I was busy with other games when it released and didn't quite get to play it right away. A month or two after its release, it dropped down to $15 from its original $40 (I got it for $32). I was upset that I paid so much for it when I could have gotten it for a lot less. It was around that time that I decided to start it up and play it. Then I found out that it wasn't a Rogue-like Dungeon Crawler. It only made up a very tiny portion of the game and was its mean of participating in combat.
Trillion: God of Destruction is a Simulation game that mixes elements of management simulation, visual novels, dating simulation, and Rogue-like dungeon crawlers where you ultimately have to take down a monster with a Trillion HP. The plot of the game is that a monster arrives at the gate of hell and starts eating and destroying the underworld. The great overlord of the underworld faces the monster when he hears that his brother's counter-attack had failed. The great overlord also fails to thwart the rampaging monster and meets his demise as well. He then hears a girl's voice calling out to him and offered to save his life if he were to agree to fighting the monster once again and to relinquish his own soul after it is defeated to the girl. He awakens to a patched up, almost zombie-like appearance, version of himself and is to agree that he uses his ability to train each an overlord to fight in his stead using his power. This is where the roller coaster of emotions begins.
The game caught me off-guard on so many different levels that it became one of the more memorable games I played this year. First, I got the genre wrong, then I realized the games doesn't play the way I thought it would (I thought I could choose any character and train them all together, but you don't since you can only train one at a time), and it completely blindsided me when it mentioned "hey, the overlord you're training will probably die". They don't mention this until after you've picked a character and started training them already. In the beginning, you have the choice between 3 of the overlords. I'll be mostly talking about all the characters and overlords. So I started off the game choosing Perpell (the one in orange) because she was incredibly cute. As you choose the overlord's training regiments, you'll also spend time with them, give them gifts, and run into certain events that could reward you, add more to the story, or curse/injure your overlord. For the most part, the game is bright, colorful, light-hearted and funny. But it keeps going back to the theme of despair and absolute hopelessness. I was already informed that the overlord will die if they do no successfully take down Trillion at the beginning of the game, but I had no idea how they would present a character's death. I was expecting a quick and silly "oh, they died" sort of event to occur, but that was not the case.
Characters:
Zeabolos - He's the main character and the Great Overlord that everyone seems to adore. The player assumes the role of Zeabolos and finds that for a leader of the underworld, he is kind-hearted, loyal, and empathetic. You can't help but understand why all the female characters seem to hold affection for him and all his subjects are so loyal and respect him. I really liked him as a character, though as generic as he may be. His comedic reactions in contrast to his more serious attitude was likable.
Faust - I didn't get to play her. You have to do some specific things throughout the game in order to play 3 of the other characters other than the 6 overlords and I didn't want to play the game anymore. Faust is the girl that saves Zeabolos' life and asks for his soul in return after Trillion, the monster attacking the underworld, is destroyed. She has a serious and logical personality that evokes little to no emotion, which often times rub the other characters the wrong way. She's mysterious and has seemingly shady motives throughout the game. It isn't until you get near the end of the true ending that you realize who she is what she's after. She's the daughter of a great overlord of the underworld from another dimension that was destroyed by Trillion and wishes to use Zeabolos' soul to revive her father and restore her dimension and underworld. If you defeat Trillion with Faust, you get her ending in which she refuses to take Zeabolos' soul as she had fallen in love with him from the time they spent together. She then marries Zeabolos and stays with him in his dimension and world.
Perpell - The overlord of gluttony. She's the adorable niece of Zeabolos and daughter of Zeabolos' brother, Astaroth. She's quite child-like and is often seen or heard eating sweets. When Zeabolos' offered the throne of the great overlord to whichever overlord defeats Trillion, Perpell wanted to become the Great Overlord and filled the castle with sweets. She's honest, innocent, and cheerful which easily makes her the most amiable characters in the game. Zeabolos' does his best to be a father figure to Perpell after he makes a promise to his brother in his dying breath that he'd take care of his two daughters. That's why it was the most hardest death to get over when it happened. Perpell was the first overlord I trained and sent out and I had a fatherly attachment to her where I just wanted her to succeed. When Trillion kills an overlord, it does it slowly and you hear the overlord crying out in pain and expressing unfulfilled wishes and regret. I was devastated when Perpell died and wasn't sure if I wanted to continue playing the game. It definitely made me cry. But I was thinking I wouldn't like any of the characters as much as her and decided to continue.
Mammon - The overlord of greed. She's a treasure hunter that likes to track down valuables and pawn them off. She expressed her wish of being the great overlord so she would have access to the royal vaults. I nicknamed her "underboob-girl" just thought of her as the tomboyish thief that did things her way and muscled through everything rather than thinking. But then you learn that she takes all the money she earns from treasure hunting and uses it to better the lives of those in the slums where she was born and raised until she was adopted. She has a difficult time expressing herself and eventually claims that Zeabolos "will belong to her" when she becomes great overlord. I then sensed the pattern within the game: it makes you interact, learn and become attached to a character and then have them die if you fail to kill Trillion. You not only invest time into each of the overlords but emotional investment as well. This made for a good story and character investment, but a cruel ride for your heart.
Levia - The overlord of envy. I really liked Levia, but I knew I would. She's voiced by Imai Asami, who voices Noire (my favorite character from Hyperdimension Neptunia), has a tsundere personality, is the prettiest character out of the 6 overlords. She denies her emotions often, but makes it fairly apparently for the player that she really likes Zeabolos. They're childhood friends and so there is much that the two characters understand of each other. I don't recall what she exactly wanted as great overlord, only that she could be near Zeavolos.
Ashmedia - The overlord of lust. I honestly thought I wouldn't like her very much as the "giant-boobed, 'I love sex'" archetypes are generally my least favorite of characters. She constantly talks about delivering pain to others and enjoy hearing the screams of agony from her victims. She flirts with Zeabolos a lot and makes lewd remarks that causes him to fluster. But then you get into an event where Zeabolos finds Ashmedia more docile when she's usually the domineering one. Zeabolos takes up on Ashmedia's suggestion to "sleep" with her and teases her until she nervously admits that she's "never done this before". Zeabolos is taken aback by this remark and realized Ashmedia is not who everyone thinks she is. Ashmedia then says something along the lines of "the more outgoing and open a girl seems, the more wholesome and pure they actually are". It was just so funny and cute how scared and nervous she looked. She was a girl that was misunderstood and everyone projected their ideas of who she was and she just went with it.
Ruche - The overlord of pride. She's a complicated character. She goes a bit beyond being tsundere. She is the niece of Zeabolos, the older sister of Perpell, and the daughter of Astaroth. She has the princess complex and looks down on everyone, especially Zeabolos. But there are a great number of times where she subtly expresses concern, kindness, and empathy while still trying to hold up a strong front. She's proud of her own abilities and expects a lot from herself and those around her. But she's not very honest about her feelings and it leaves a lot of confusion for everyone. She'll often scold Zeabolos for being dense and foolish, yet always reminds him that he's the great overlord and should act like it because she believes in him. She doesn't like being treated like a child and often hints that she actually has feelings for Zeabolos despite being related. She claims that she'll take the title of great overlord and become the greatest leader the underworld has ever known and would be sure to have Zeabolos bow to her abilities. When you fight Trillion with her, you will have to fight a reanimated version of her father who became a messenger for Trillion. When you defeat him, she repeated bashes the body and yells at how it wouldn't die and let her father's spirit rest in piece. When the body finally ceases to move, she breaks down and reveals the broken sad girl that she had held in throughout the game. It was a very emotional moment and felt so bad for her. To be in such an awful situation where she loses her father, then her little sister, then having to fight an abomination of what used to be her father and then having to fight a monster that threatens to destroy her home world, how could I not feel bad for her. If you get her ending, she drags Zeabolos along to help save Faust's father and home dimension rather than having him give up his soul. Years pass and she's shown to be grown up and looking more like an adult. She still expresses her concern of other girls taking Zeabolos away which still hints at her having affection for Zeabolos.
Fegor - The overlord of sloth. The older sister of Zeabolos sleeps throughout the game. She'll be asleep in the middle of the road, in the garden, under the library table, everywhere. But if it gets to the point where she has to train and fight, they start explaining that she is actually incredibly powerful and was once on the front of the war that took place between heaven and the underworld. I didn't think much of her, but she's actually a pretty cute character. She has a certain charm to her. If you get her ending, she just continues to sleep. She also has Zeabolos give her a kiss on the mouth.
Cerberus - Once a fearsome dog-like guardian, Cerberus was turned into a tiny little puppy due to the miasma that Trillion exuded. Towards the path of the true ending, Cerberus is a playable character that fights Trillion. If you get his ending, Zeabolos blows up and becomes a ghost that advises for Cerberus. I didn't get to see any gameplay or events besides the ending for him, so nothing much to say.
Elma - The sickly, younger sister of Zeabolos is a playable character towards the path of the true ending. She takes on the role of an overlord and fights Trillion, of which the power from the ring that each overlord wears that connects to Zeabolos' power cured her of all her illnesses. For her ending, she becomes the great overlord and is said to be an incredible worker on domestic matters. She then expresses her feelings that she has always wanted to be Zeabolos' bride. WHAT?! I honestly didn't see that coming at all. But then she goes on to say that "she'll be happy whoever Zeabolos marries as long as he continues to praise her".
True Ending - Everyone has to die and you have to do very specific things. That is when all the power accumulated from all the overlords flow into Zeabolos where he regains power once again to thwart Trillion once and for all. After defeating Trillion, everyone is suddenly revived and each of them sacrifices a small portion of their souls instead of having Zeabolos give his entire soul to Faust. Everything goes back to normal, and yet everyone is a bit happier, healthier, and stronger.
Which ending did I get? None of them. I played through what I could and couldn't beat Trillion and didn't want to start over with a method I knew I could win with, but I simply did not want to invest anymore time into the game. I spent at least 30-40+ hours on the game without actually finishing it. I mainly wanted to get to know all the characters as best as I could. Overall, I really enjoyed the story and thought the writing for the game was great. The voice acting (for Japanese at least) was incredible and really brought out the personality of each character and their emotions beyond anything the graphics were doing. Gameplay wise, it's rather tedious and monotonous just to get to events and to the actual fights. I laughed a lot, cried a lot, and had some fun fights. I really enjoyed the game for what it was and thought it was quite unique, but it's not a game I could easily recommend due to its difficulty and tedious gameplay. But if you're still interested and don't have a PS Vita, the game is releasing this upcoming Monday on Steam/PC.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/451780/
Trillion: God of Destruction is a Simulation game that mixes elements of management simulation, visual novels, dating simulation, and Rogue-like dungeon crawlers where you ultimately have to take down a monster with a Trillion HP. The plot of the game is that a monster arrives at the gate of hell and starts eating and destroying the underworld. The great overlord of the underworld faces the monster when he hears that his brother's counter-attack had failed. The great overlord also fails to thwart the rampaging monster and meets his demise as well. He then hears a girl's voice calling out to him and offered to save his life if he were to agree to fighting the monster once again and to relinquish his own soul after it is defeated to the girl. He awakens to a patched up, almost zombie-like appearance, version of himself and is to agree that he uses his ability to train each an overlord to fight in his stead using his power. This is where the roller coaster of emotions begins.
The game caught me off-guard on so many different levels that it became one of the more memorable games I played this year. First, I got the genre wrong, then I realized the games doesn't play the way I thought it would (I thought I could choose any character and train them all together, but you don't since you can only train one at a time), and it completely blindsided me when it mentioned "hey, the overlord you're training will probably die". They don't mention this until after you've picked a character and started training them already. In the beginning, you have the choice between 3 of the overlords. I'll be mostly talking about all the characters and overlords. So I started off the game choosing Perpell (the one in orange) because she was incredibly cute. As you choose the overlord's training regiments, you'll also spend time with them, give them gifts, and run into certain events that could reward you, add more to the story, or curse/injure your overlord. For the most part, the game is bright, colorful, light-hearted and funny. But it keeps going back to the theme of despair and absolute hopelessness. I was already informed that the overlord will die if they do no successfully take down Trillion at the beginning of the game, but I had no idea how they would present a character's death. I was expecting a quick and silly "oh, they died" sort of event to occur, but that was not the case.
Characters:
Zeabolos - He's the main character and the Great Overlord that everyone seems to adore. The player assumes the role of Zeabolos and finds that for a leader of the underworld, he is kind-hearted, loyal, and empathetic. You can't help but understand why all the female characters seem to hold affection for him and all his subjects are so loyal and respect him. I really liked him as a character, though as generic as he may be. His comedic reactions in contrast to his more serious attitude was likable.
Faust - I didn't get to play her. You have to do some specific things throughout the game in order to play 3 of the other characters other than the 6 overlords and I didn't want to play the game anymore. Faust is the girl that saves Zeabolos' life and asks for his soul in return after Trillion, the monster attacking the underworld, is destroyed. She has a serious and logical personality that evokes little to no emotion, which often times rub the other characters the wrong way. She's mysterious and has seemingly shady motives throughout the game. It isn't until you get near the end of the true ending that you realize who she is what she's after. She's the daughter of a great overlord of the underworld from another dimension that was destroyed by Trillion and wishes to use Zeabolos' soul to revive her father and restore her dimension and underworld. If you defeat Trillion with Faust, you get her ending in which she refuses to take Zeabolos' soul as she had fallen in love with him from the time they spent together. She then marries Zeabolos and stays with him in his dimension and world.
Perpell - The overlord of gluttony. She's the adorable niece of Zeabolos and daughter of Zeabolos' brother, Astaroth. She's quite child-like and is often seen or heard eating sweets. When Zeabolos' offered the throne of the great overlord to whichever overlord defeats Trillion, Perpell wanted to become the Great Overlord and filled the castle with sweets. She's honest, innocent, and cheerful which easily makes her the most amiable characters in the game. Zeabolos' does his best to be a father figure to Perpell after he makes a promise to his brother in his dying breath that he'd take care of his two daughters. That's why it was the most hardest death to get over when it happened. Perpell was the first overlord I trained and sent out and I had a fatherly attachment to her where I just wanted her to succeed. When Trillion kills an overlord, it does it slowly and you hear the overlord crying out in pain and expressing unfulfilled wishes and regret. I was devastated when Perpell died and wasn't sure if I wanted to continue playing the game. It definitely made me cry. But I was thinking I wouldn't like any of the characters as much as her and decided to continue.
Mammon - The overlord of greed. She's a treasure hunter that likes to track down valuables and pawn them off. She expressed her wish of being the great overlord so she would have access to the royal vaults. I nicknamed her "underboob-girl" just thought of her as the tomboyish thief that did things her way and muscled through everything rather than thinking. But then you learn that she takes all the money she earns from treasure hunting and uses it to better the lives of those in the slums where she was born and raised until she was adopted. She has a difficult time expressing herself and eventually claims that Zeabolos "will belong to her" when she becomes great overlord. I then sensed the pattern within the game: it makes you interact, learn and become attached to a character and then have them die if you fail to kill Trillion. You not only invest time into each of the overlords but emotional investment as well. This made for a good story and character investment, but a cruel ride for your heart.
Levia - The overlord of envy. I really liked Levia, but I knew I would. She's voiced by Imai Asami, who voices Noire (my favorite character from Hyperdimension Neptunia), has a tsundere personality, is the prettiest character out of the 6 overlords. She denies her emotions often, but makes it fairly apparently for the player that she really likes Zeabolos. They're childhood friends and so there is much that the two characters understand of each other. I don't recall what she exactly wanted as great overlord, only that she could be near Zeavolos.
Ashmedia - The overlord of lust. I honestly thought I wouldn't like her very much as the "giant-boobed, 'I love sex'" archetypes are generally my least favorite of characters. She constantly talks about delivering pain to others and enjoy hearing the screams of agony from her victims. She flirts with Zeabolos a lot and makes lewd remarks that causes him to fluster. But then you get into an event where Zeabolos finds Ashmedia more docile when she's usually the domineering one. Zeabolos takes up on Ashmedia's suggestion to "sleep" with her and teases her until she nervously admits that she's "never done this before". Zeabolos is taken aback by this remark and realized Ashmedia is not who everyone thinks she is. Ashmedia then says something along the lines of "the more outgoing and open a girl seems, the more wholesome and pure they actually are". It was just so funny and cute how scared and nervous she looked. She was a girl that was misunderstood and everyone projected their ideas of who she was and she just went with it.
Ruche - The overlord of pride. She's a complicated character. She goes a bit beyond being tsundere. She is the niece of Zeabolos, the older sister of Perpell, and the daughter of Astaroth. She has the princess complex and looks down on everyone, especially Zeabolos. But there are a great number of times where she subtly expresses concern, kindness, and empathy while still trying to hold up a strong front. She's proud of her own abilities and expects a lot from herself and those around her. But she's not very honest about her feelings and it leaves a lot of confusion for everyone. She'll often scold Zeabolos for being dense and foolish, yet always reminds him that he's the great overlord and should act like it because she believes in him. She doesn't like being treated like a child and often hints that she actually has feelings for Zeabolos despite being related. She claims that she'll take the title of great overlord and become the greatest leader the underworld has ever known and would be sure to have Zeabolos bow to her abilities. When you fight Trillion with her, you will have to fight a reanimated version of her father who became a messenger for Trillion. When you defeat him, she repeated bashes the body and yells at how it wouldn't die and let her father's spirit rest in piece. When the body finally ceases to move, she breaks down and reveals the broken sad girl that she had held in throughout the game. It was a very emotional moment and felt so bad for her. To be in such an awful situation where she loses her father, then her little sister, then having to fight an abomination of what used to be her father and then having to fight a monster that threatens to destroy her home world, how could I not feel bad for her. If you get her ending, she drags Zeabolos along to help save Faust's father and home dimension rather than having him give up his soul. Years pass and she's shown to be grown up and looking more like an adult. She still expresses her concern of other girls taking Zeabolos away which still hints at her having affection for Zeabolos.
Fegor - The overlord of sloth. The older sister of Zeabolos sleeps throughout the game. She'll be asleep in the middle of the road, in the garden, under the library table, everywhere. But if it gets to the point where she has to train and fight, they start explaining that she is actually incredibly powerful and was once on the front of the war that took place between heaven and the underworld. I didn't think much of her, but she's actually a pretty cute character. She has a certain charm to her. If you get her ending, she just continues to sleep. She also has Zeabolos give her a kiss on the mouth.
Cerberus - Once a fearsome dog-like guardian, Cerberus was turned into a tiny little puppy due to the miasma that Trillion exuded. Towards the path of the true ending, Cerberus is a playable character that fights Trillion. If you get his ending, Zeabolos blows up and becomes a ghost that advises for Cerberus. I didn't get to see any gameplay or events besides the ending for him, so nothing much to say.
Elma - The sickly, younger sister of Zeabolos is a playable character towards the path of the true ending. She takes on the role of an overlord and fights Trillion, of which the power from the ring that each overlord wears that connects to Zeabolos' power cured her of all her illnesses. For her ending, she becomes the great overlord and is said to be an incredible worker on domestic matters. She then expresses her feelings that she has always wanted to be Zeabolos' bride. WHAT?! I honestly didn't see that coming at all. But then she goes on to say that "she'll be happy whoever Zeabolos marries as long as he continues to praise her".
True Ending - Everyone has to die and you have to do very specific things. That is when all the power accumulated from all the overlords flow into Zeabolos where he regains power once again to thwart Trillion once and for all. After defeating Trillion, everyone is suddenly revived and each of them sacrifices a small portion of their souls instead of having Zeabolos give his entire soul to Faust. Everything goes back to normal, and yet everyone is a bit happier, healthier, and stronger.
Which ending did I get? None of them. I played through what I could and couldn't beat Trillion and didn't want to start over with a method I knew I could win with, but I simply did not want to invest anymore time into the game. I spent at least 30-40+ hours on the game without actually finishing it. I mainly wanted to get to know all the characters as best as I could. Overall, I really enjoyed the story and thought the writing for the game was great. The voice acting (for Japanese at least) was incredible and really brought out the personality of each character and their emotions beyond anything the graphics were doing. Gameplay wise, it's rather tedious and monotonous just to get to events and to the actual fights. I laughed a lot, cried a lot, and had some fun fights. I really enjoyed the game for what it was and thought it was quite unique, but it's not a game I could easily recommend due to its difficulty and tedious gameplay. But if you're still interested and don't have a PS Vita, the game is releasing this upcoming Monday on Steam/PC.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/451780/
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