Monday, September 29, 2008

News post of the Day: New DS, huh?

Everyone is up in the hypestorm created by the report made by Nikkei-Net's report about a new DS that will apparantly be released by the end of the year. According the Japanese newspaper, the new DS will have a built in microphone, better wi-fi, and two touch-screens.

Judging by the source, I don't think it's bull, but that doesn't mean that the entire report is accurate, either. The release date is a bit odd, seeing as how if it was to be released by the end of the year, Nintendo could've announced it at E3. Announcing it at an October summit is sort of a 30-minute warning, no? It's not that it's too early (really, it's about time), but it just seems like a bad approach. Additionally, two touch-screens seems a bit overkill, but I can see its uses, especially in book form. The SD card is also a bit sketchy, but it's a welcome addition. I look forward to whatever comes down the pipeline on this.

Peace

Days off are the best, eh?

This blog ain't dead yet, folks! As mentioned earlier, I haven't been able to really write recreatively for a while because of the fact that my schedule is currently a clusterfuck of classes with lots of homework (thanks, counsler!). Now I finally have a day off, and there's things to talk about.

First of all, what the fuck am I supposed to about Mega Man 9? I happen to have the means to download it from all three of the consoles' download services, but I don't know which controller I want to throw at the wall ( and now that wireless is standard, controller throwing is a more viable option ). I know for a fact that it won't be the 360, mostly because 2D platformers and analog sticks don't mix, and the D-pad is for choosing weapons and other non-active things. It really comes down to the D-pad of the PS3 and Wii. I really like the PS3 one better, but not getting a retro Mega Man game on a Nintendo system seems like...I don't know, like I punched someone who gave me something in the face. Regardless, I need to get it, because of Protoman.

Next, on all those Street Fighter 4 videos. While I'm actually suprised that Capcom would go so far as to create a never-coming-out-for-real anime to promote the game, I don't feel like I needed them to get hyped up for this. The scenes are really a bunch of nonsense that is supposed to set up the story, but If you're really looking to a fighting game to deliver top-notch storytelling, you're getting off on the wrong foot here. Whenever you do pop in the game, you'll have a backstory, but that won't stop you from not being able to make anything coherent out of what you'll be presented with in the actual game. Now, it's possible that maybe this will be the fighting game that presents us with story worth telling and not just s framework around which to fight your fellow enthusiasts, but I think these videos are setting people up for disappointment.

Finally, I'm going to group the last to bits of info I'm going to talk about because they're more or less the same thing: The Halo Keep It Clean trailer and Metal Gear Solid Existence being trademarked. In all honesty, they can be summed it up by the following statement: Fans want more, companies will give it to them. Now, while nothing has been revealed about MGSE, I'm more than certain it will be Metal Gear Solid 4's Subsistence, and most of the fan hype is akin to what people were speculating about what Brawl characters were going to be in the game, only to be dissapointed by a great roster. The Halo video is much the same thing, except it gives to only a little more, which is kinda sad, seeing as how MGSE wasn't even supposed to be a news item, since there was no press release and it was just Konami trademarking the name, and Keep It Clean was supposed to be a juicy tidbit. As for what Halo is, it's a Campaign expansion, or at least that seems obvious if you watched the video, but that won't stop fanboys from thinking it's something more than that.

Peace

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Does this mean I suck?

At my local comic shop, we usually have tourneys on Mondays. We pay a 5.00 dollar fee for entering a tourney. We play. The number of people we have determines how many rounds we play, so that everyone plays everybody at least once. At the tournament's end, we distribute packs (2 to the winner, and depending on how many people came, 2 to second) and 1 for the rest. We distribute promo's in the following manner: 1st gets 4, 2nd gets 3, 3rd gets 2, everyone else gets one. Because of the number of people who show up (usually 5), we almost always have promo's readily available. If you'd like to play, contact The Game Shoppe for details.

What was that? An introduction to how I play UFS. But now I'm getting to the part that merits the title. At the latest tourney, I was lucky enough to pull this:

Yeah, she's a beaut, eh? When this baby came out of my pack, there were leaps for joy to be had for all, and I quickly got home and started tihnkning of ways to use this sucker. Now, for those of you who may not play UFS (and the majority who come here for games are the people I'm talking to), this is a good card. I think.

Here's where I get into something odd; I honestly don't think I need it in any of my decks. I do run a deck that have each of its symbols (the things that let you play it in the first place), but most of the time, I feel like its ability never helps me that much. In fact, I'm using abilities more than once per turn (Morrigan, Sakura, and Ken are the decks I'm talking about, in case you'd like to know), so It'd stop me more often than it'd help.

Now, the other option I have is to make a deck based around it. Ukyo is the idea I have in mind, but I'm not even sure if it works at this point, but I really don't feel like making that sort of deck, because it looks like a bitch to make.

Now, I do see that this card stops lots of degenerate crap, but I just don't see it fit with the kind of decks I like to make. And with lots of people jumping through lots of hoops (especially if they're made of money), I feel really weird putting it in my binder instead of in any of my decks. I'm just not sure I've found this card's strength, or at least where it benefits me.

So I ask the question again: Does this mean I suck? Do you have any suggestions on what to do with it? Because if you do, I'd love to hear them. Give me your thoughts in the form of comments, and maybe I can put this thing in a plastic sleeve someday.


Peace.

Monday, September 1, 2008

Look Ma! An RPG!



RPG's are often seen a genre that are mundane, repetitive, and unwilling to change (this is especially true for Japanese RPG's). This stereotype has been broken in the last two decades. Newer RPG's have made strides to improve on the concept of a party, equipment, and monsters. Several have innovated, and not all have succeeded, but some have taken positive steps to not only improve the genre, but to appeal to people who haven't touched a game of this kind. In the case of Final Fantasy III, none of the innovations are here, but is careful to include all of the things that typically make people hate the genre.

FFIII, is, for all intents and purposes, a remake. It originally came out long ago, in Japan, anyway. Now, because of all the confusion of Final Fantasy releases in the US (II here was IV there, III here was VI there), this version was never released here, officially. Recently, Square Enix remade III (getting tired of Roman numerals yet?) for the DS. Consequently, that meant they had to release it here, so now, 16 years later, Final Fantasy fans can enjoy what is basically the most traditional game in the series.

The story of FFIII is as basic as you can get. Your party are the Warrior of Light, a group of orphans who are destined to stave off the flood of darkness and save the world with their magical light force. In order to do that, you have to go around the world(s) and find several crystals scattered throughout, making progress on way to the final boss battle. Really, it's your standard RPG fare, the story really has no suprises, it plays out very linearlly, and I never really felt compelled to keep going for the sake of the story. I mean really, If you've ever played and RPG, you know what you're getting into here.

To be fair, though, you don't usually get into most RPG's for the story. You do it for the battle system. In this area, also, FF III sticks to as traditional a method as you'll likely find. The battles themselves are turn-based, speed applies as to what order the characters go, and that's pretty much the whole of battles. Nothing that FFI didn't do before it here. However, be aware that this one is harder than your average, and I don't feel it was for fair reasons. The AI is smart, and by that I mean cheap. It attacks whatever member you don't need it to attack most, and pretty if one of your characters dies, then you revive them, it'll ususally target them, so if you lose a character, have fun getting them back. Also, it seems to me that they're able to alter the order of moves. I don't know if this is true, but it seemed like the order would change to the computer's advantage, and to my dismay.

The graphics are probably this game's most notable feature. Unlike 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6 for the GBA, III is rendered in full 3D, and does it gorgeously. Sure, it's N64 graphics, but on an LCD screen they sure look crisp. Everything from the overworld to the actual battles are fully polygonal, but the animations are somewhat lacking. They just look like they put the 2D motions on the 3D renders. The touch screen controls are also new. They allow to basically never touch the buttons at all, and while they were nice to use in the beginning, I found myself always going back to buttons, and never pulled the stylus out again.

The last new feature is the Wi-fi additons. You can send messages to friends and characters in the game, and they can reply back. Not much else to do here. However, it really bothers me that there is not only a class that you can only get if you send a certain number of messages to friends, but there is also a secret dungeon that you can also only get if you send out a certain number of messages. This won't be a huge problem for anyone near a router, but if you don't have internet (which most people should, the problem is getting that stupid dongle or having a compatible router), not having access to this stuff (and hindering content to those without internet when it could just as easily been available without it) is really, really dumb.

Now, something that FFIII did first was the job system. What this entails is basically the ability to choose what you want your character to do. Do you want them to be a tank class (such as a warrior, knight, etc), a Healer class (White mage, Devout), or a sort of specialty class (Bard, Geomancer, etc.). This allows to go through the game several times with completely different parties. My problem with this is that while what class you choose has a great effect on what the outcome of the battle will be, there are only a few classes worth using, and the rest of the classes just seem like gimmicks. My other problem with this system is that you only get more classes after beating certain bosses (the ones surrounding crystals), and no matter how much time you've invested on a certain class, the ones you end up getting will almost always be better than the ones you have, so you'll have to constantly switch classes.

My last problem with this system, is that unlike FFV's job system, which encourages you to change classes by allowing you borrow skills from one class and take advantage of them in another class (thus leading to mixed sub-classes), FFIII completly discourages ever changing your class. It does this in three ways. First, whenever you change class, there is absolutely no description of what the job does. That means that aside from the obvious Warriour and Mage classes, you don't know what you're getting into when you change. I almost never changed classes to experiment with a new class, only going for classes that either had a cool name (Ninja), or one that I knew would be a better version of what I had (Dark knight). Most people won't want to change classes because they don't want to invest time in a class that isn't going to give them a good return.

This wouldn't really been a problem if it wasn't for the next problem, which is by far my biggest gripe with the job system. Whenever you change classes, there is a "job adjustment" phase where all of your stats are decreased. Yes, this is realistic or whatever, but it doesn't help that when you want to change jobs, you don't know what you're getting into, and you're also risking getting your ass kicked. It isn't entirly crippling, but I never wanted to switch classes for fear of whatever class I chose totally sucking, and having decreased stats may get my ass kicked, especially in the early stages of the game.

My last problem with the game may or may be influenced by FFV, and its skill system, but I feel it's still a valid complaint even if haven't played it. Whenever you change classes you don't carry anything over from the class you switched over from. Nothing. That means that all the time you spent increasing that class's level was for nothing other than getting you through the part of the game that you were using it. It's really irking to to switch to a better class and have to start over from square one with that class all over again.

My other big gripe with the game is that it just expects you to know everything, as if you had played the game already (in japanese, on a Famicom), it almost never hints as to what the hell you're supposed to be doing, and when it does, it's very vague about it. Things are hidden in places where you're likely to never look, don't hint as to their whearabouts, and you have to scan around whole towns just to find anything useful. The game doesn't guide your hand at all, and if you're lost, well get used to it. Now, for RPG (and especially JRPG) vets, this really won't be a problem, but someone who's never played one is going to feel really, really, confused.

FFIII is basically what you'd call an RPG. It doesn't do anyting new, in fact it's probably the most traditional Final Fantasy I've ever played. It's about as monotnous, grueling, and long as you'd expect it to be, and for most RPG's that's fine and all, but when you're getting kicked around by a game that doesn't help you get anywhere, triumphs on your every mistake and does it while laughing at you, it really doesn't help. It's not challenging, it's cheap. I beat the game in about 30+ hours, but any skill is easily replaced by leveling up, which makes it more tedious. If you've played any Final Fantasy game before, pick it up, in that sense it's really what you're asking for it's not better or worse than average, but if you'd like to get introduced to the RPG genre look elsewhere.