Dave's Reviews

To get straight to the point. The game is very good and you should buy it. There you don’t have to read the entire review now. You happy? However if you want to see why you should buy it read on!

For the purpose of this review I am going to be playing the PC Steam version of the game. Mostly because it was really cheap. (JB Hi-Fi on sale = $70, Game.co.uk Steam activation code = $40) But this was a game I was genuinely interested in buying. I haven’t really played much of the “Shock” games as a matter of fact I only ever played Bioshock 1 and it was ok but I didn't play it too much. Which to my brother would probably be a blasphemous statement because I know he really enjoys the game. However this time around things were a bit different. I don’t know if it was the setting or the characters but this time around I was genuinely motivated to play the game. It wasn't like some of the games I've reviewed where it was like “*Sigh* I’m going to have to play through this entire game?” (I’m looking at you Mystic Quest Legend). I really enjoyed most parts of the game and didn't find myself getting really upset or bored with game. So let’s go over why!

History

After having a rather interesting series of games with the System Shock, System Shock 2 and Bioshock. 2K games or Irrational games or whatever they’re called decided to make a sequel to Bioshock, called Bioshock 2. And as Yahtzee would probably say “We don’t talk about THAT one”.

Doesn't look too bad to me...

Then after Bioshock 2 they decided they were going to make another one! As a result we got Bioshock Infinite.

The game was released on March 26, 2013 and it was released on the PS3, 360 and PC and will eventually be released on the mac. It was in development for about 5 years before it was finally released. The developer of the game decided it was a better idea to make the game have a different setting from the last two games but keep the same ideas they used in those games. Which were the idea of exploring a fantastical world and the idea of using a plethora of different tools in order to come up with creative ways to survive.

Presentation

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

The game looks really outstanding. (Not surprising considering I was running it on a HD 7850 with a Phenom 2 and 16GB of ram.)

Vending machine!

Everything looks well polished and all of the aesthetic fits rather well for 1912. All of the contraptions and such look as though they were made by people from the era and the characters all look great.

That’s a rather detailed hand I have there...

The environments of the game are really well thought out and there are a lot of places to explore and things to interact with.

Time for a movie!

And the various effects you see throughout the game are really well done. They make things seem surreal and sometimes make you feel uneasy.

The power... It’s mine! ALL MINE!!!

When it comes to sounds the effects are mostly reused from the original Bioshock game. The menu’s and such have this nice clunky-ness and things like eating food and getting drinks and such all sound fine. However it’s the music of the game that really leaves it’s mark. The way that the developers have taken already existing music and adapted it to the era and the original sound tracks that are used throughout the game are really well made. The game does a particularly good job of adjusting the music to the environment. Much like Portal 2 and Monkey Island 2 the game changes it’s music depending on what’s going on. However here it’s done a bit differently. When you’re in a fight music will play and it will go away when you’re done. But here it changes the music depending on what you do in the fight. Say if you kill a bad guy in one hit then you’ll hear the sound of someone hitting a piano and there are other various effects.

Visual representation of music FTW! Nowhere near as awesome as Symphonie Diagonale though.

However when there isn't a battle the music just goes away. The exploration part of the game see’s the music replaced with either music from record players and radios from the environment around you and sometimes dialog either that or just no music at all. However there are sometimes when the music does come back to add some suspense to specific areas and cut scenes too.

Story

The game is held in a floating city called Columbia during the year 1912. The player is a person called Booker Dewitt who has accumulated some sort of debt and is required to travel to Columbia in order to retrieve a girl called Elizabeth. The story basically revolves around Booker and Elizabeth’s relationship and their adventures trying to escape Columbia.

A bit creepy that she’s being spied on like this...

As the story progresses the characters get to know each other and themselves better and begin to understand the world around them. We find out about each character by finding things in the environment of the game rather than just being forced to watch or learn about them which means that the more you invest into getting to know the place the more you’ll find out. If you want to leave out some parts or just plow through the game you don’t have to listen to all this stuff if you don’t want to either that or you can take your time and find everything.

The game gets rather complex later on and I don’t want to spoil it but it has to be said that this is one of the better endings I've seen in a game. Right up there with games like Metal Gear Solid 4 and the like. Everything gets tied up in a nice little bow and we get an explanation for pretty much everything even if it isn't immediately obvious. Overall the games story leaves you with a sense of satisfaction that you've found out about pretty much everything that there is to offer.

Gameplay

The game play features your typical first person shooter tropes. Things like only being able to carry two weapons at a time and having a regeneration shield and such.

Look some yellow stuff. That prevents me from being damaged and mysteriously regenerates...

There are the usual enemies like the guys who just shoot at you and the guys who run up to you and hit you and the guys who have rocket launchers (A technology that didn't exist in 1912. But I guess it is on a floating city). There aren't many varieties in the enemy or the enemy placement apart from some scenes in the game where there are two different sets of soldiers. Some who are fighting with you and some who are fighting against you. But that doesn't last for long. There are also a few stealth moments in the game but they aren't very difficult or interesting.

I wonder if I should avoid the guy who has a bright light coming out of his neck?

There are things called Vigors and Gears in the game. The Vigors are pretty much magic and the Gears are kinda like equipment. When you find a Gear you can equip it and get a special ability without any cost. When you get a Vigor you get a sort of superpower. Things like being able to possess bad guys or throw fireballs and such. They can be used to get through battles and if used wisely can be really helpful. Vigors take up what’s called salts and can be replenished by picking up well... jars of salts!

My favorite is return to sender.

The game introduces a couple new mechanics. One which we see all the time that usually fails and one that is new and interesting. For the most part of the game you will have Elizabeth follow you around. For most games having someone follow you around can be a real burden. But Elizabeth is actually useful. Not only can she handle herself in battle so you don’t have to protect her. But she can also assist you throughout the game. She does things like gives you Ammo, Health and Salts during battle and outside of battle can pick locks and give you money.

THANK YOU!

She also has the ability to summon objects onto the field. I won’t go in depth (Spoilers and such) but this really helps.

That sure is a large... MG Turret?

Then there is the new and interesting mechanic. The skylines. The idea is that there are lines and hooks and such that are used to transport goods and during the first few hours of the game you get a contraption that allows you to latch onto the skylines.

What goes up...

At first it’s nothing more than a hook sort of thing but as the game goes on you get to the rails and it get more complex. You get other people on the skylines, you get things blocking the skylines and bad guys electrocuting them so you get hurt if you use them. That and the fact that you can jump off the skylines onto enemies makes it very fun and interesting to cruise around these skylines. However there are some moments when this mechanic doesn't work too well. I found that a few times I got stuck on the skylines without anyway to get off. I had to restart from the checkpoint and that gets annoying.

Must come down.

However the game does keep a fair few elements from games like Bioshock and considering Bioshock was made 5 years ago it’s not always a good thing. There are a lot of good features lifted from Bioshock. Such as the Plasmids/Vigors and health packs and such and it is nice to see the health bar alongside the shield. But the problem I have is with the idea of searching everything.

Who throws MONEY in the trash?! Oh and look! A sammich too! It’s my lucky day!

You can search everything from corpses to desks and find all sorts of things but I find it takes way too much time to search for things and there is generally little reward for doing so. There are so many times when you find nothing in a bunch of boxes or shelves that make you wonder why they’re even there in the first place.

Overall

At the end of the day I can’t recommend this game enough. While there may be a couple gripes I had with it (Only ONE save file?! Without a manual save option!?) and there are plenty of glitches (Or at least that I found) in the game. I found myself enjoying this quite a bit. There wasn't a complete lack of hospitality from the NPC’s like what was in (Or what I saw of) Bioshock and the game has a very good balance between fighting and doing things like exploring. There are quite a few things to collect and there are always interesting environments which are reinforced by the presentation. The action scenes are about as exciting as you make them to be. You can just plow through everyone with a shotgun or you could use the skylines and vigors to make things more interesting. The entire experience is great and it is most certainly worth a play through.

9/10

Now like the original game I am playing the MSX2 version of the game on my PS3 via Metal Gear Solid 3 via the Metal Gear Solid HD collection. This is the first time I’ve played Metal Gear 2 so most of my comments will be from my first impressions of the game so if anyone wants to point out anything for me then feel free to do so.

So let’s get this show on the road!

History

When Metal Gear was made it received a port to the NES which for the most part was an inferior port. However for some reason the guys who made the port decided to make a sequel called

Snakes Revenge 

The game was a rather mediocre attempt to make a sequel to Metal Gear. After hearing about the game from the developers Hideo Kojima (Creator of the series) decided he was going to make a real sequel to the game. Thus Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (Insert innuendo here) was born.

The game was released in 1990 and was originally released on the MSX2 but only in Japan. It was released on Mobile phones, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Playstation Vita, Xbox 360 and Virtual Console. The Playstation and Xbox ports were released in english. However in the newer versions the portraits of the characters were altered. Probably because most of the originals look like celebrities. There were also some other minor changes. Things like name changes and such but for the most part the game was the same.

Presentation

For 1990 the game looks about average. However when you take into consideration the game was on an 8-bit system the graphics all of a sudden look a lot better. Better than anything the NES could’ve done. But considering it was on a Japanese home computer I’m not too surprised that this is the case.

They’ll never suspect the cardboard box in the middle of the desert!

See!

The graphics improve a lot over the last game. From the very moment you start the game up you can tell that they’ve improved things.

You know they mean business when they use graphs!

Things have changed a lot. Characters are more diverse and have portraits when the using the codec.

That’s some crazy mustache you have there.

The games interface has made a lot of changes and it makes the game work a lot better. Your items and weapons are presented a lot better and you get a radar this time around.

The music improves a lot on the first game. The whole idea of trying to make it feel suspenseful thing is still carried over from the last game. However this time around it’s been improved and it has a very different sound to it. The intro music is really awesome and the “Dun dun dun” music is pretty cheesy (Especially when it happens when you’re not sure what’s going on)  but the entire thing gives it a sort of 1990’s action movie feel to it.

Story

The story holds pretty much the same plot as the last game. “Infiltrate base, Destory metal gear”. It’s basically the plot line for all of these games. But this time the plot has a bit more depth to it. I’d rather keep this review spoiler free and since I can discuss the game properly without doing so (Unlike spec ops) I’m going to do that! This time around the game has gotten a lot more story elements. It is very much like later games where there are long codec calls and cutscenes and such. Not as bad as say Metal Gear Solid 4’s 90 minute cutscene but a lot more story than the original Metal Gear. This time around we get to hear backstories of characters from this game and the last game. We also get to hear a lot more about the world Metal Gear is in. We actually get a backstory during the opening of the game as to what we’re doing and hear about things during the game too.

The story is much more complex but for this installment it works well. While the brevity of the last game isn’t here this one provides just the right amount of info without going too indepth. You’re not going to complain about extremely long conversations or pointless exposition.

Gameplay

The gameplay follows the same basic rules that Metal Gear did but this time with quite a lot of improvements. For one there aren’t classes anymore. You don’t go around saving people to gain classes instead you just gain them after certain points in the game. Also this time around you can see where guards are in the top right hand corner. You can see the layout of other area’s and what the guards are doing.

I know where you are!

You can also crouch this time around. Which helps a lot in finding hiding places. Which is important because now the guards will follow you for a certain amount of time rather than until you leave the room or kill them all. You can crouch and hide under things like tanks, trucks, beds and just holes in the wall.

No one can see me here! I’M under a truck!

You also get the same mechanics for items and weapons but this time there are some improvements. For example if you crouch over a mine you can pick it up and use it later. There are also different types of rations which seems useless at first but later in the game it becomes important.

Here birdy birdy birdy...

You also get Red, Green and Blue cards which consolidate older cards. For example the Red card works for ID 1-3 doors and the Blue one works for ID 4-6 cards and such. Which means it’s a lot easier to keep track of cards this time.

There are also a lot of set pieces that were reused in Metal Gear Solid. Things like the elevator with 4 people in it and the time when you have to climb stairs with guards following you. You can also catch a cold. Which never happened to me during the game (Cause I’m just that awesome!) But unfortunately I did lose some footage so I don’t have screenshots for these parts. But they do happen!

There are some really good puzzles in the game too. Some of which you really have to think about like the WIS.OhIO puzzle. These puzzles aren’t incredibly difficult or abundant but they are fun to figure out and chances are you won’t have to use a walkthrough to figure it out (Unless of course you’re lazy)

Promiňte. Nemluvím česky.

You even get the cigarettes again this time. If you smoke them they show up in both the field and the codec screen.

Ahh it’s just some bad guys shooting at me. I’ve got time for a smoke.

Hey Campbell. What’s up? I’m just being shot at while taking a smoke.

e are a bunch of other improvements but for the most part everything is put together much better. Everything seems fluent and the guards aren’t nearly as stupid as before which makes the game a whole lot more pleasant to play.

However it does fall short in a few area’s like say backtracking or things like this.

GRAARRGGHH!!!

This is probably the most frustrating part of the game. You have to find an invisible path through the swamp via sheer trial and error. If you stray off the path for too long you die. It’s really annoying and thankfully you only have to go through it a couple of times. But it’s possibly the worst part of the game.

Overall

While my first impressions of the game haven’t been too great. As in I didn’t really say something like “Wow this was an awesome game” after playing the game. After taking a look at the previous game I realize that it’s a really big achievement especially for the MSX2.

The game is a rather large improvement over the last game and it shows. The graphics are better, The music is better, The gameplay is better and (Surprisingly enough) The history is better. It shows that it has been much more polished than the first game and makes the game a much more pleasant experience.

It’s a game that doesn’t require as much cryptic problem solving and (Given the deficit of the swamp part) doesn’t involve much trial and error. As a matter of fact it’s so easy I would recommend you finish the game using sheer wit. As in not referring to the walkthrough the entire time. Cause even though it’s a rather old game it’s really simple and satisfying to find out what to do.

I’m going to give the game a 9/10

Now for the purpose of this review I am playing the Steam version of the Special Edition of The Secret of Monkey Island. The game goes for 10 bucks and is a remake of the original DOS game with redone graphics and voice acting and everything and is really well made. It even allows you to instantaneously switch between the new and the original version of the game. But for this review I will be using the original graphics simply because this was the only copy of the original game I could get that worked properly. (Stupid DOSBox, ScummVm resolution problems!)

History

The game was released in 1990 for the PC, Amiga, Atari ST, Mac, Sega CD and FM Towns. The game was rather interesting in the way that it was one of the very first games where you couldn’t screw up (Given the deficit of one death that required a lot of patience). You see back when the game was made point and click adventure games were notorious for being difficult. You would die for doing some of the simplest things and would have to start again or reload a save game. Sierra-Online games were the biggest culprit...

Pick your nose in Quest for Glory.

Look inside a hole in Space Quest.

  Fall Into the Moat in Kings Quest.

Stand on the cliff in Monkey Island...

Wait... Never mind.

See this is pretty much the point of Monkey Island. Ron Gilbert (One of the guys who helped make the game) thought that this trend of making games difficult by putting in a bunch of deaths was real cheap and decided to make a game that doesn’t kill you at every opportunity instead. Something that was a bit more user friendly and appropriate for families and such. Ron Gilbert teamed up with Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman in order to make The Secret of Monkey Island.

Presentation

The presentation in this game is rather good. While the graphics used in the special edition are from the 1992 version of the game they still look real good for the time.

everything is bright and colourful but I must admit that for the first couple acts the game is very... Dark blue.

I’ll pester your rat as much as I want thank you very much!

However the music is a bit lacklustre. The opening theme sounds really good no matter which version you use (Except maybe PC Speaker... Although for a PC Speaker... Not too bad.) and there are couple other good songs but for the most part you’re either gonna hear nothing or ambience.

Story

The story follows a man called Guybrush Threepwood who somehow ends up on an Island deep in the caribbean called Melee Island. He has one simple goal, He wants to be a pirate. Guybrush finds out from the 3 pirate leaders on Melee island that he needs to complete three trials. Which consist of finding treasure, beating the sword master and stealing an idol. While doing so you meet the governor of the island Elaine Marley.

Wow... She’s pretty...

And fall in love with her at first sight. You also learn about the ghost pirate LeChuck who was also in love with the Governor but she wasn’t interested in him. So as a result he sailed away to find the Secret of Monkey Island in order to impress her. But he got killed along the way and now terrorizing the pirates around the caribbean. After completing the three trials LeChuck comes by and kidnaps the governor and takes her to Monkey Island so you gather a ship and a crew in order to save her. Once you find out how to get to Monkey Island you find a giant monkey head.

Well it most certainly is large.

The Monkey Head is the gate to hell (Kinda) where LeChuck has his hideout. After acquiring a some root beer (Ghosts one weakness. Who knew?) you go to confront LeChuck but he has already sailed off back to Melee island in order to marry the governor. So you follow him there and crash the wedding. After having LeChuck punch you around the island a bunch of times you find some root beer and destroy him with it. You get the girl and everyone is happy!

Actually I only paid 10 for it.

The story in this game is surprisingly well written. Almost every character has something interesting to say and there are plenty of funny lines and gags throughout the game. It’s an absolutely hilarious game and since I went through all the effort of recording it I’m gonna show you some!

My sentiments exactly.

Gameplay

This game is pretty much just a point and click adventure game. It uses the SCUMM engine that LucasFilm used to use in it’s games but it improves a lot upon the games that used it beforehand. The way that it works is there is a series of verbs at the bottom of the screen and you can click on the verb and then items on screen and such. You pretty much use these words and items to form sentences in order to perform tasks.

What?... His breath stinks!...

This version of the SCUMM engine has improved a lot on the previous games by LucasFilm. While this version is actually taken from Monkey Island 2 because it’s the 1992 version of Monkey Island the only real difference is “Walk to”, “Turn off” and “Turn on” have been taken away and the items are now pictures not words. But the game improved a lot because now you can “Look at” things to see what they are and the “What is” command that tells you what items are if you hover over them from earlier games is now automatic. You can also right click to get a default action like say if you right click on a person it will use the highlighted command. But the most important improvement is the ability to talk to people and have conversations.

OH! Ask them what’s in the grog! It’s the funniest!

This allows for some hilarious conversations to take place. I would suggest talking to as many people as you can and maybe even playing through to game again just to see what happens when you say different things cause the game is full of witty remarks and funny conversations.

But even more importantly this innovation of dialog tree based conversations opens up a new kind of gameplay and that is the ability to insult sword fight.

How appropriate! You fight like a cow

After getting a sword and paying Captain Smirk 30 pieces of eight to train you how to sword fight he tells you the most important part about sword fighting. "Swordfighting is kinda like making love. It's not what you do but what you say what's important." at this point you learn that in order to win a sword fight you have to be good at insulting people and good at making comebacks too. So you go and you fight a bunch of pirates in order to learn all the insults. The way it goes is you start off with an insult of your own and if the opponent gives the correct answer they insult you and you have to give a comeback. If not you get to insult them again. This goes on until one of you can disarm the other.

I already did. And I beat her! And now I’m going to go do it again. Cause I can... Maybe...

It is rather fun sword fighting with words and it puts a rather interesting twist on the whole the pen is mightier than the sword thing. But at times it can seem a bit tedious to learn all the insults and everything.

The game is also full of puzzles you have to solve. Things like using mugs and grog to free the prisoner to figuring out how to read dance instructions as a map.

What do you mean? I only bought a map to the Melee Island from that suspicious looking fellow...

… Oh... DAMN IT!

The puzzles aren’t too difficult to figure out (Especially if you listen to all the conversations!) and they can be very rewarding. Especially when you figure them out yourself and don’t just look up a walkthrough.

Overall

This game is one I can strongly recommend. It has plenty of humour and puzzles. It’s one of those games that you just want to go around and hear what everyone has to say and since you can’t die in the game it encourages you to go around and explore the place. Take your time and don’t worry about people trying to kill you or anything.

While the games interface is a bit dated it still holds up pretty well today and if you really don’t like the old interface you can use the new interface that was implemented in the special edition (Although I prefer the original). The game is rather cheap and you can find it on Steam, iOS, PSN and XBL.

This is one of those games that has aged like fine wine. I find it just gets better every time I play it. For that I give this game a well earned 9/10.

David.

For the purpose of this review I am going to be reviewing a hard copy of the game played on a Super Nintendo. This is the main reason why it took me so long to actually write this review. Simply because of technical difficulties. When I hooked up my Super Nintendo I found I was having problems getting the controller to work. So after looking all around Canberra and finding every super Nintendo controller I could find I ended up with 6 broken controllers.

I was about to give up and use an emulator when I finally found one more controller at Flipside and lo and behold, It worked. Now this was all fine and dandy until about 15 minutes later when my Super Nintendo refused to turn on. So after dropping WAY too much on another Super Nintendo (The only one I could find) I was finally able to get to play the game.

This is pretty much a point to my argument of emulators. When the system and components don’t work and replacements are hard to find it’s very difficult to play the game. So in the future I will try to use real hardware but I won’t hesitate to use an emulator if it proves too difficult or time consuming.

Now that I have that out of the way lets get onto to review!

History

This game is rather interesting in the history department. Simply because of not only how it came into existence but the circumstances of it’s release too. First of all the game was released in North America first in October 1992. Only after the game had been released in america did Japan get the game under the title Final Fantasy USA. But also the game got released to the European audience (Which in the video game industry also includes Australia) under the name Mystic Quest legend. Making it the very first Final Fantasy game to make it to PAL territories.

I can hear your non existent questions now! “But David! Why was it not called Final Fantasy Mystic Quest? If it couldn't be that then why wasn't it called just Mystic Quest!?!” and those are some very good questions. You see when they released the game in PAL territories Final Fantasy didn’t exist. None of the previous 4 games had been released there. So why not just call it Mystic Quest? Well that’s because there already was a game called Mystic Quest here in PAL land. You see a game called Final Fantasy Adventure for the GameBoy in North America which was later revealed to be Seiken Densetsu 1 was also released over here. But for some reason it was called Mystic Quest.

Eh. That looks ok.

  OH MY GOD! IT’S ARMOR! IT’S SO COOL! 

So Sqaure decided to come up with a new name for their game and call it Mystic Quest Legend (Maybe because it borrows elements from Final Fantasy Legend 3, Which was also not a real Final Fantasy game) and make it sort of a sequel to a to Mystic Quest... Try to wrap your head around that one. Final Fantasy Mystic Quest or Mystic Quest Legend or Final Fantasy USA is a sequel to Final Fantasy Adventure or Mystic Quest or Seiken Densetsu but it borrows heavily from Final Fantasy Legend 3 or SaGa 3 a game that never came out here. Sheesh!

Well with all that confusing name stuff out of the way. We also get to the way the game came into existence. After seeing the original Final Fantasy be a big hit in Japan sequels were being made and the original game got localized for america (But not us...). But when that happened the sales for Final Fantasy in the US weren’t exactly what square was expecting. Not very many people bought Final Fantasy and the Dragon Quest or Dragon Warrior series (Final Fantasy’s competitor) wasn’t doing very good in the west either. So they decided that maybe JRPG’s were too complex for the western audience. As a result when they later decided to localize Final Fantasy 4 they dumbed it down. Made the game easier and took out a lot of things.

After this they decided to make a game that was designed specifically for the American audience and they dumbed down everything. Like really the entire game. From not being able to equip different armor or weapons to making the health meter show bars instead of numbers. This game was designed to be a beginners RPG in order to get the interest for JRPG’s going in the west. While the game got harsh reviews and criticism from a lot of people for the most part it succeeded in bringing more JRPG’s to the west. Not exactly because sqaure was right and Americans were to dumb but because the western audience just wasn’t ready for them yet and those of us who did want them wanted the full thing. This was something that Sqaure learnt from Mystic Quest Legend and as a result we got (Or at least America got) a lot more JRPG’s. Not only did things like Seiken Densetsu 2 get localized as Secret of Mana but also things like Final Fantasy 6 as Final Fantasy 3 and Mother 2 as Earthbound and later down the road Final Fantasy 7 which not only fixed the naming problem that square had with Final Fantasy in America (Simply by calling it Final Fantasy 7) but paved the way for JRPG’s to become extremely popular in the western market.

So how’s that for a piece of history for you?

Anywho. Lets move on.

Presentation

For 1992 the game’s graphics look ok.

Yay. It’s a house... With Palm tree in it...... Yes!

The game most certainly doesn’t look as good as Super Castlevania 4. For the most part it looks like a GameBoy game that’s been bumped up to a larger screen with colour. However sometimes it’s not exactly how the graphics look but how they’re used. Sometimes you get surprised by a few things in the game. Things like backgrounds changing.

How and why did they build a town over a chasm? 

Oh... Well now it’s over an ocean?... Where did they get enough water to fill a chasm?

Also things like the opening of a battle.

ARGH! I’m blind!

Or the way that enemies change the more you hurt them.

HAHAHA! You’re no match for me! 

Is it getting warm in here? 

Huh? I’m melting! 

What a world! What a world!

But where this game really shines in it’s presentation is the music. The game is just riddled with great music. Everything from the town music changing just a bit for each town to the final boss music. Everything sounds great and set’s the mood for what’s going on really well. The world map music sounds adventurous the boss music (My favorite) sounds epic and the dungeon music sounds serious.

But the best part about the music is that it isn’t full of emotion heavy songs like most of the Final Fantasy series so most of the music is suitable to listen to on the go. It’s not like a “You had to be there to enjoy it” sort of thing. It also makes for great music to listen to with other games that don’t have music. The music can stand by itself it is so good.

Story

Due to the nature of the games simplicity there isn’t much to talk about with the story. The story follows that you are some guy. Who just so happens to be the hero... And then some old guy tells you, you have to save the world... And restore the 4 crystals.

Wait... Wasn’t it 4 crystals?...

Uhh... yeah. You meet a bunch of characters on the way and you perform various different tasks in order to save the crystals. Then you save the crystals and then save a guy called Captain Mac who tells you about this guy called the dark king. Then you go and kill him... Yeah! That’s it.

The story in the game is rather condensed which depending on what you’re after can be a good or a bad thing. If you’re after something simple and easy to follow then this is the kind of RPG you might like.

Gameplay

Ok this is where the game is going to cop it a bit more.  The gameplay kind of becomes a mix of your usual JRPG and some Zelda like puzzles. There are battles like in JRPG’s but they aren’t random encounters. Instead they are fixed encounters that are either around dungeons or in battlegrounds which are area’s that consist of just 10 battles to complete. However they aren’t very engaging. Most battles can be won just by simply attacking or if you’re playing the North American or the Japanese version, using the life spell. However that glitch doesn’t work in the PAL version.

I’ll cure you... OF YOUR LIFE!!! 

God dammit!

There are also environmental puzzles. Kinda like Zelda. Things like blowing up doors with bombs and moving statues and such. But like the battles they aren’t very complex and they are very easy to figure out.

The weapons and the armor in the game are all automatically selected for you and the only option you get is which type of weapon you use. You always have the best one of that weapon type selected and they’re always better than the older ones anyway so it doesn’t matter.

The world map isn’t free roaming. Instead you choose area’s to visit and you can’t go to certain area’s until you complete say a dungeon or something.

Yeah I cleaned them out!

You usually have a partner character with you but you can’t change their equipment and they don’t level up or anything. When they enter the party they’re almost always better than you even if they’re a recurring character. They are also set to be controlled by the computer but you can set them to manual if you want.

MORE PARTY MEMBERS!

It is really evident that they tried their best to dumb down this game. Sometimes it can even feel like a chore trying to say kill all of the bad guys in an area or in a battlefield simply because there isn’t any thought put into defeating the enemies. There isn’t really any customization and the amount of stuff to buy is minimal. Only a few pieces of armour and things like potions. But you never need to get any potions or anything because not only does the game give you more than enough but chest’s that are brown in colour (The ones that only have things like potions and seeds and the like) refill after you leave the area. However the red chest’s that contain things like armour and key items don’t refill.

However the one thing this game does right is the dungeons. The dungeons are really well thought out and they have a lot of fun little puzzles. There are extra areas to explore and they can be fun sometimes. The majority of the exploration in the game is in the dungeons and it is handled rather well.

Overall

Overall the game is rather disappointing. Sure it’s built well and the music is kick ass but overall the dullness of the graphics and the chore of the gameplay and lack of customisation and any sort of side quests or extra things to do makes the game get boring rather quickly. The only thing I would say this game is good for is if you just simply want to play something that’s short and easy. If you’re say in a sort of “Meh” mood and you just want something to occupy you then this is almost the perfect game for it. But apart from that you’re really better off playing something like Final Fantasy 4,5 or 6.

I give this game a 6.5/10

...

0/10.

David.

So recently the playstation 4 got announced and it was said that there would be no backwards compatibility in the machine given the defecate of streaming via the internet.

A few days ago I was watching an episode of the game over thinker on screw attack that covers this subject and while I do think that it would be better if the playstation 4 had full hardware backwards compatibility I think it would essentially ruin the Playstation 4 if it was done.

Sure it would be awesome to have all 4 Playstation's in one box the cost of doing so would probably raise the price of the Playstation 4 too much. You see after releasing the Playstation 1 Sony was all like "Let's make a Playstation 2" and when they did that they were like "Hey you know what. It may cost a little extra. But lets put in a Playstation 1 as well! This will sell like hot cakes!" and so they did. For a minimal extra cost they put in the extra hardware and it made the PS2 all the more awesome.

But then the PS3 came around and sony was all like "Hey! Let's do it again!" However this time the plan didn't work so well. Their inclusion of the playstation 2 and the playstation 1 hardware raised the price of the PS3 to a whopping 600 USD or 1000 AUD at the time. Because of this the PS3 got a lot of criticism for the price so Sony simply said "Screw it! We'll can the PS2 support and sell it for cheaper" So they did, selling the 40GB model that only had PS1 support for about 750 AUD (I dunno the USD amount. Probably about 500) and as a result the PS3 started to recover.

However I think that the cost of putting in not 1, but 3 systems worth of hardware into the PS4 would raise the cost by 200-250 bucks, Even if the games were played using an emulator instead of hardware, programmers need to be payed and emulators are very difficult to program. Also this means that most games will take time to get working. Simply because these things take time to test so out of the box a lot of disc based games will have problems and a lot of digital download games won't be available.

This is where Nintendo comes in actually. See Nintendo seems to have gotten this whole backwards compatibility thing down pat. They not only had a lot of time to think about it but they also got to make a lot of the mistakes Sony couldn't. Most of Nintendo's backwards compatibility work was on hand held's not full systems.

Because nintendo's systems used different cartridge designs they almost never had problems with backwards compatibility, there simply just wasn't any. But then they put backwards compatibility into the gameboy colour and gameboy advance and I think this was where nintendo made their mistakes. You see the gameboy advance was backwards compatible with gameboy and gameboy colour games. Chances are after this they learned that making a system compatible with (At the time) 12 year old games wasn't exactly the best idea. So they when they made the DS they ditched the idea of the gameboy/gameboy colour games all together and just put in support for GBA games. The last generation.

Now the system was a big success and as far as I know they didn't get many complaints about not having the GB and GBC compatibility. So when the Nintendo wii came out Nintendo decided to only make it backwards compatible with Game Cube games (The last generation) like the DS. It wasn't like they had much choice considering the rest of the systems all had carts.

But at this point Nintendo also thinks "Well is there any way to make those older games compatible?" So they decided to start selling the older games as emulated titles on their store. Everyone seemed pretty happy about this. So Nintendo decided to carry this idea over to the 3DS which plays (Last generation) DS titles and GBC/GB games via emulators (Strangely no GBA). It also supports some NES games for a little extra bonus

So it seems as though the best formula for this sort of thing is to have hardware support for the last generation only and earlier generations can get emulation compatibility. Even the Wii U is starting to follow this trend. Support for the Wii titles but only emulation support for earlier titles.

I think that if sony is going to do backwards compatibility it should be more like this. But that being said their idea of streaming games doesn't seem too bad. I mean if the games can be played via a relatively slow connection and still feel like it's being played by the real hardware they may have a thing here. This method also allows for more games to be supported quicker as they don't have to make the perfect emulator for each one and release it on the store, They could just have some real hardware doing the streaming. Also if it could detect the game you have a hard copy of and let you stream it then that would be AWESOME!

Although I think we all know what's gonna happen. You'll need a fast connection, It's going to have lag problems, none of the good titles will be available and there won't be any hard copy detection. But hey, we can always dream.