Game Time - November 2016

As with every year November is when the holiday season really begins to ramp up; It's the busiest time of year for me at work, and my family and close friends start coming around a lot more frequently. It's an awesome time of year that brings me a lot of warm feelings.

Part of why I enjoy November so much is because games I want to play tend to come out. This year it was especially true. Pokemon games come out semi-annually now, but it's not every time that a new generation begins. Rumors of the 7th generation of Pokemon have been swirling for over a year now. It didn't help my excitement that when the demo came out in October almost the entire game leaked onto the Internet....

So yeah, I played a whole ton of Pokemon. Somehow I also ended up engaging with a decent amount of Watch Dogs 2, despite telling myself I wasn't going to get it. I have way too many games I started this year, but didn't finish. I guess I was too interested in seeing how it turned out. I'm not done with it yet, but I think it's an okay game. Not amazing, just okay.

Then you have the crown jewel of this month, which is Final Fantasy XV. The troubled development cycle made it take around ten years to come out. To be honest I never thought I'd actually get to play it, but here I am playing it. It's actually running on the TV next to me right now.

Oh yeah, I bought a sweet 50' 4K TV on Thanksgiving. It was on sale for $328 and I just couldn't pass it up. Now I can actually take advantage of my PS4 Pro, which is really neat.

There's so much I have to say about these games. I could actually spill out thoughts about FFXV until I explode, but I'll save you from that tragic fate. Instead I will outline my basic experiences here and then write up a Game Time ID when I have finished the game. I still have a bunch to say now though, so let'e get into it. It's game time!

Watch Dogs 2

I actually didn't think the original Watch Dogs was a terrible game. It was an open world game. Like all open world games it was mostly about shooting your foes, but you could also hack things with your phone to take them out as well. More often than not that meant incapacitating people by exploding things near them. It was a novel idea, but it didn't have much depth. The real issue with the game was the main character Aiden Pierce and the story surrounding him. He's a completely unrelatable character and an all around asshole. He uses his own sister as bait at one point. It didn't help that everything was hyper serious. There was absolutely no comic relief, which left me with a very sour taste.

Now it's a few years later and we have Watch Dogs 2. The good news is that the characters and story are worlds better than the original. You play as Marcus, who is a young hacker trying to change the world in a positive way by taking on big data. He's a regular guy who loves technology and bad movies. He's relatable and interacts with the other characters in the world in a fun way. The game's tone overall is a lot less self serious, which is exactly as it should be. The game knows it's goofy and uses that to its advantage. The issue I have is that the story is very disjointed, much like most Ubisoft games are now. You learn a lot about Marcus and his crew at DedSec, but the overarching story jumps all over the place. The game constantly introduces new characters with no explanation of who they are, and then proceeds to not really clue you in afterwards. It's frustrating, but the characters make me forget about the seemingly non-cohesive plot.

Marcus is a pretty likable guy.

The gameplay has both changed quite a bit, and not very much at all. What I mean by that is that Watch Dogs 2 is still an open world game. You can drive cars, take cover, and shoot at a bunch of people. My issue with the gameplay in Watch Dogs 2 is that the shooting feels much worse than the original game. I eventually got used to the combat, but Marcus doesn't feel powerful like Aiden did. Before I could go into any situation guns blazing and come out unscathed, whereas with Marcus I go down almost instantly. I guess this fits with the character, but it's still frustrating when I get caught in a stealth section and can't really do a whole lot about it.

The cool changes come in the form of hacking. You can still hack nearby objects with your phone nothing has really changed in that regard. There are some cool new features like the ability to call gang hits on enemies. This makes is so that gang members come in and start shooting, which alleviates the need for you to shoot yourself. What's really cool though is that you can complete every mission without having Marcus enter the mission area himself. He is equipped with a small rover and a drone. The rover can jump, and do physical hacks in place of Marcus. The drone can fly around buildings and hack anything that doesn't require physical contact. This means that as long as you're not seen by the enemy you can do everything with these two tools at your disposal. The only downside is that if they get shot down or blown up, then you have to wait an oddly long amount of time before you can bring them out again. Regardless it's a really cool concept that works well.

The rover adds a whole new way to tackle each mission.

I was personally hoping for Watch Dogs 2 to be a huge step above its predecessor. Instead it takes incremental steps forward. It makes me worry for the future of the franchise. I don't really know where they go from here. So far I'm really enjoying my time in the game, and think I'll actually try to finish it. Initially I wasn't really digging it, but as I got more skills and access to the drone I began to have a much better time. It's definitely a lot better than the original.

Pokemon Sun/Moon

Pokemon is one of those magical franchises for me that will never get old. Despite the fact that you essentially do the same thing in each iteration I can't get enough of trying to capture all of the little critters that I can. However, this time the adventure is actually quite different. Prior to release I was a bit skeptical, but now that I've put 60 hours into the game and completed it I can safely say that Pokemon Sun and Moon are great games that do a lot right! Long running franchises like Pokemon walk a razor thin line where they need to try new things to pull in new people, while not changing the things that long time fans will get upset about. Obviously someone always gets upset, but I honestly think that Game Freak did a wonderful job this time around.

This time around you play as a Pokemon trainer who has just moved from the Kanto region to the beautiful island paradise of Alola. Surprise, it's basically Hawaii! The journey takes you across four different tropical islands, which are all very different in terms of what they have to offer. It's cool, because large cities take a back seat for more lush natural environments. I feel stupid every time I say this, but it's the first time that the world feels like it's actually inhabited by both humans and Pokemon instead of it just being a world where humans live and Pokemon are their battle slaves. You interact with Pokemon in the wild, and see them walking around way more than in any other entry in the franchise and I love that!

People and Pokemon live in harmony in the Alola region.

For those of you who have played Pokemon before you know what the goal is usually to collect eight gym badges and then take on the Elite Four. In Alola that is not the case, because they have not established their Pokemon League yet. Instead you travel across the islands in search of trials. Some trials are battles with powered up wild Pokemon, while others have you collecting items. It's a nice change of pace. Each trial you complete awards you with a Z-crystal, which allows you to use Powerful new Z-moves. Normally Pokemon have four moves, but if they are holding a Z-crystal of their type then they can use a powerful Z-move once a battle to do a ton of damage, or increase the buff they receive. It sounds simple, but it adds a whole new layer of strategy just as mega evolution did in the last generation.

The plot is slightly different from standard Pokemon fare, in that it's actually a real story. Since Black and White Game Freak has been trying to make their stories have more depth, but I think they truly succeed in Sun and Moon. You're introduced to a host of interesting characters over the course of the game such as the lovable Professor Kukui, the shirtless professor, who I genuinely was interested in by the end of the game. While the central plot ends up being essentially the same as other entries in the franchise it builds up the characters and world they live in, in a way that has yet to be seen in a Pokemon game to date.

Battle's look better than ever before.

The number of new Pokemon is around 80, which is low compared to previous generations. I think that the level of quality is slightly higher this time around though. That can just be said for the games in general as well. The visuals are better than ever before and everything is done with a flourish. It's funny, because as I'm writing this and thinking about the game a smile is creeping across my face. I have always loved Pokemon and it warms my heart to see the franchise continue to move forward instead of stagnate. If you've never played a Pokemon game before there has never been a better time to jump in and immerse yourself in the world.

P.S. Team Skull is the best

Final Fantasy XV

In the ten years since the announcement of Final Fantasy Versus XIII I tempered my expectations. At the time I was beyond excited, but as the years drew on and the game wasn't really shown I tried to ease my excitement. Years went by with no news, and then in 2013 the game re-emerged as Final Fantasy XV. At that point it had been so long I was no longer able to hype myself up. I just didn't believe it was every going to actually come out. Now we're here in 2016 and I'm playing the game. I still can hardly believe it, but I definitely am playing it. However, much to my dismay I am not enjoying it as much as I wanted to. It's a very interesting game. There are a lot of great ideas, and a lot of horrendous ones intertwined into what is a pretty good game.

Yes, I realize I said I wasn't having a very good time and that's true. Personally when I go into a Final Fantasy game, or really any JRPG I'm looking for a semi-compelling story with well developed characters. Final Fantasy XV has one of those things so far, and that's compelling characters. Prince Noctis starts off as a spoiled brat, but seems to be opening up and realizing that he has a responsibility as the crown prince. It helps that the central focus of the game is traveling around the world on a road trip with your bros. The story on the other hand is a disjointed mess that has yet to pull me in. As of right now I'm halfway through, so I'll wait to pass judgement until the very end. However, I can't really see it shaping up. For starters if you didn't watch the prequel movie (Kingsglaive) you would have literally no idea what's going on in the game and understand next to nothing about the world it takes place in. That sucks. I get that sometimes supplemental material is cool, but when something is an integral part of understanding the story of your 40+ hour JRPG maybe put it in the game... I'm saying this as someone who watched the film. Then on top of that the game itself starts off with little to no introduction. That's okay though, because there's a 40 page prequel novel PDF that you can download to see what happened beforehand....

These are the characters you'll be seeing the most of. (Left to right: Gladio, Ignis, Noctis, Prompto)

Aside from the ancillary content I don't think the story in FFXV is told very well, but that's not entirely the game's fault. See, because it's an open world game. I like open world games, and think that they can tell good stories, it's just that most of them don't. Instead they focus on making the open world compelling while putting the story on the back burner. This causes pacing issues right off the bat. I did the first two story chapters which took about 2 hours, and then did sidequests for about six. That means that instead of doing the super urgent story matter I needed to attend to I messed about collecting monster bits for people at a diner. That's my own fault though. Let's look at a different scenario now. I finish my sidequesting and do the main plot again. I end up doing three story chapters in the course of 20 minutes with little to no explanation. The pacing is all over the place. I'm not even going to get into how half the story chapters come out of nowhere and seem like they're remnants from a completely different game. That's a story for a different time.

What about the gameplay you ask? I want to be joking when I say that for combat you essentially hold a single button to win, but it's true. You hold the attack button to do combos, and if you hold it forever Noctis will keep going until he gets hit. The longer the combo the more damage you do, and you'll eventually stagger the enemy and break parts of its body. The fun part of combat comes from Noctis' ability to teleport and change weapons rapidly. He has special powers, because he is one of the chosen kings in a destined line. This means that he can throw his weapons and teleport directly to them. You can lock onto an enemy and push the warp button to do a warp strike at them. This uses mana, which can be recharged by standing still or hanging from a warp point. Warp points are scattered around the battle, and act as ways to rapidly recover both HP and mana. This mechanic feels cool, and looks awesome, but isn't totally necessary. So far I have been able to get through every battle by holding circle and occasionally dodging. Oh yeah I forgot to mention that if you hold the dodge button you can essentially dodge every single attack forever. This trivializes all combat, and it doesn't help that if you don't mainline the story and do sidequests you become over leveled immediately. Despite all this there is actually some depth to the system for those who are willing to look for it, but there's really no reason to unless the post game bosses are absolutely insane.

Sadly battles are not very challenging.

I feel so conflicted about Final Fantasy XV. On the one hand I find the story to be a disjointed mess, and combat to be a dull slog. However, on the other hand I like exploring the world, driving along the roads listening to the radio, and camping under the stars with my bros. It's a beautiful and flawed game that has a lot of heart at its core. The open world and the story often seem at odds with each other, and remnants of what the game used to be still remain. Keep in mind I'm only halfway through the game and it apparently stops being open world at some point and becomes completely linear. I don't understand how such a shift could possibly happen, but I can't wait to find out how it's done. I'm enjoying myself enough to keep playing, but it's definitely not the masterpiece I was secretly hoping for after ten long years.

The Wait is Over

The Sony exclusive The Last Guardian was announced right around the same time as FFXV. Similarly people thought it was never going to come out, but in just a few short hours UPS will be delivering it to me. It's crazy that two games that have been in development hell for almost a decade will have come out within two weeks of each other.

While I have enjoyed Team ICO games in the past I am cautiously optimistic about The Last Guardian. While FFXV seems to have changed greatly from what it originally was, The Last Guardian seems to have kept the old PS2 style gameplay it was shown off with originally. All I know is that I love how lifelike the weird bird-dog animal is and I want to give it a hug. I really hope you can hug it!

With that said look forward to another exciting edition of Game Time next month! I'll be putting it up right around the same time as my game of the year list and podcast, which you won't want to miss!

Memorable Melodies: Victory Fanfare from Final Fantasy VI

Song: Victory Fanfare

Game: Final Fantasy VI

Composer: Nobuo Uematsu

This week I'm bringing one of the most iconic video game composers of all time into the mix alongside one of the most iconic video game tracks ever conceived. If you've ever played a Final Fantasy game, then you have undoubtedly heard some variation of the Victory Fanfare. Once you take town a squad of enemies in battle this triumphant tune plays as you bask in your glory.

What's interesting about this song is that there are so many different versions of it. Each main line Final Fantasy has its own spin on the song. They all have different feels. I chose the version from Final Fantasy VI, because it's the most upbeat. Some of them like the one in Final Fatasy IX start off up-tempo, but quickly bring it down. The version in Final Fantasy VII isn't very upbeat either.

Each different version has its own unique feel and that's an impressive feat considering just how many variations there are. 

Note: Final Fantasy VI is my favorite Final Fantasy game.

Game Time - September 2014

I played three very different games this month. The first was a sweet sweet rhythm game, the second was a Dynasty Warriors game, and the third was a loot based first person shooter. These games couldn't be more different than each other and I had a lot of fun playing all of them. Those are just the ones I'm going to talk about here though.

In case you missed it I put up a Game Time ID of the first Danganronpa. I'm currently playing the 2nd game and it's pretty damn good. I also decided to buy Shovel Knight on the Wii-U, because I got a craving for some retro platforming action. I won't be talking about either of those this month, but I figured they were worth mentioning.

I have a lot to say, so it's probably best if I get right into it. It's game time!

Theatrhythm: Curtain Call

The original Theatrhythm, Final Fantasy Theatrhythm came out in 2012 and I was absolutely in love with it. It was only natural that I would purchase the sequel and love it more than the first one. In an unsurprising turn of events Curtain Call is basically the same game as the original. It adds a few new modes and a whole metric shit ton of content. The gameplay remains essentially unchanged though.

Theatrhythm is a Final Fantasy rhythm game in which you slide and tap the stylus in line with the beat of a song. Curtain Call added the ability to use the buttons and the circle pad on the 3DS as an alternative control style. I tried it for a bit, but didn't like it very much. I've seen a ton of people saying that they have an easier time getting good scores using the buttons, but I already don't have a very hard time using the stylus.

The gameplay remains the same in Curtain Call.

Just like the original game you create a party of four Final Fantasy characters. As you play the game they level up and gain stats. The stats don't really matter to the gameplay unless you're challenging a particularly hard song. You lose health each time you miss a prompt, so the higher level you are the longer you can stay alive. There are a ton more characters to choose from this time around. Not only are there characters from the 14 main Final Fantasy games, but there are some from the spin-off games as well. Characters from Crystal Chronicles, Mystic Quest, Type-0, and more now make an appearance.

On top of the new characters there are a ridiculous amount of new songs as well. All of the ones featured in the first game return, as well as every single DLC song from the first game. When you add in all the songs from spin-off games the total quickly jumps past 200 playable songs. If you're a Final Fantasy fan you'll recognize a vast majority of them. What's cool is that there is a such a wide array of songs to choose from, so if you're not a fan of a game there's plenty more songs to choose from.

Quest mode is a fun addition

There are also two brand new modes in the game. The game now has a versus mode where you can challenge other players to your favorite battle songs. You can battle the AI, local players, or players on the internet. I can't seem to get the online battles to work. Every time I try to join someones game I get a 3DS system error. I've seen other people complaining about it, and it seems to be fairly common. Hopefully it's something that gets fixed soon, because the battles are quite fun. You play the songs like normal, but after hitting so many notes you get an EX power-up and something bad happens to your opponent. Most of the effects make it harder for your opponent to hit notes, but some of them are totally worth it. If you just want to test your skills you can play on the hardest difficulty without power-ups as well.

The other new mode is a quest mode. Randomly generated overworld maps are created and each node on the map is a song. You choose which node you want to go to, and some of them will have boss characters. If you reach the end you have to fight a final boss, and if you kill it you'll be victorious. This is similar to the Chaos mode from the previous game, but it has a little bit more depth. It's trying to make you feel like you're on a Final Fantasy-like adventure even though it's just a rhythm game. This mode is how you unlock most of the characters, because it's the most likely to give you the shards necessary to do so.

You can hang out with fat chocobos now too.

Theathrhythm Curtain Call is an amazing game. I've played it for far too many hours already and I'll probably continue to do so. This time around each DLC song is only $0.99 as opposed to the $1.99 in the previous game. That means I'll be able to convince myself I need to buy way more songs. If you don't like Final Fantasy this game is absolutely not for you. It's essentially a nostalgia factory for fans of the series. If these games keep selling well hopefully Square will realize they need to make a similar game for all of their classic RPGs.


Hyrule Warriors

I don't know what there is to really say about Hyrule Warriors. It's a Dynasty Warriors game with Zelda characters. As you have heard me say many times in the past I love me some Dynasty Warriors action. Yes, I realize that the gameplay is super repetitive and not very complex. I also don't care. It's fun to slash through hundreds of enemies with little no no resistance while sweet guitar riffs happen all around me. The difference this time is that I get to to it as Zelda characters.

I don't really know why Nintendo let this collaboration happen, but I'm perfectly okay with it. I just don't really know how people who don't like Dynasty Warriors are going to take it. There is a buttload of Zelda references in the game, which are amazing. I just don't know if that's enough to get people to enjoy a Dynasty Warriors game if they don't already. It's the same formula, but now you can be Link.

Dynasty Warriors: Link Edition

There are actually some cool new additions to the game that I hope Tecmo Koei takes back to their other Dynasty Warriors games. Hyrule Warriors has a lot of giant monsters in it, as do a lot of other games in this series. The difference here is that all the monsters are weak to specific items. The Gohma Queen shoots her laser eye and then it's weak to an arrow show. Once the monster is knocked down they're left open to attacks, If you hurt them enough you'll do a crazy powerful move on them that takes away a ton of health.

I think that the addition of collectibles on the map is great as well. Zelda games often have you searching for Golden Skulltullas or things of that nature. They appear in this game as well. A web appears on the map and then you have to search the area. They're often obscured by a rock or something. When you attack them they give you some lame concept art, but the idea behind having collectibles in each map is cool.

Defeating large monsters is actually pretty fun.

There's only so much I can say about the game. You push the same button over and over to kill hundreds of enemies as Zelda characters. I think it's amazing, but a lot of people don't.

Destiny

Bungie is almost exclusively known for creating the Halo franchise. So when the news that that would no longer be making Halo hit it was a pretty huge deal. That was years ago, when the world found out they were making Destiny. There's been a huge amount of marketing about the game and I feel like people have been talking about it ever, It's Bungie's first non Halo game in a super long time, so it's only natural that people would be excited. In fact this is the first PlayStation 4 game that almost everyone on my friends list has. So the real question is it a good game? Yes and no.

I want to like Destiny, and I do to a certain extent. However, in the games current state I think that it's repetitive and boring. For those who don't know it's a first person shooter with MMO trappings. It also has some elements of Borderlands and Phantasy Star Online as well. It has shooting that feels very good and is easy to control, and you get guns that vary in terms of how they shoot and how much damage they do. One of the problems the game has is that the guns aren't varied enough. Sure they get better in terms of damage, but all the auto rifles are still basically the same exact thing. It's a shame, because the game is all about collecting weapons and armor in order to get better.

Get ready to shoot lots of aliens!

Playing Destiny with friends is great. It's super easy to get into a group and do whatever. There are always missions and things to do. That's where Destiny is kind of not doing it for me. The part where I have to grind the same levels and missions over and over is not exactly what I would call fun. The games story is an absolute joke to boot. Every single mission involves you putting out your little robot buddy to scan something. Immediately following that enemies attack and you fend off a few waves. That's literally the central crux of every single mission in the game. To make it even worse all of the lore isn't even accessible in the game itself. You have to go to Bungie's website to read cards you've unlocked by playing the game...

The level cap at the moment is 20, but you can advance to level 30 by grinding for loot that has light on it. When I say grind I mean it. I've done the same story missions dozens of times with friends just to try for a chance to get better armor. These missions aren't really that fun either. The act of shooting enemies is satisfying, but I find all of the bosses to be super tedious. Most of them are nothing more than bullet sponges. Shooting the same enemy for twenty minutes until it dies and maybe drops something that's worth a shit is not appealing to me. What's even less appealing is fighting those same bosses over and over to try and get faction reputation so that I can buy better armor and guns.

This is my hot Destiny character.

Destiny frustrates me, because it has flashes of brilliance in it. It's also extremely flawed, especially the loot system. When your players would rather find exploits to get loot to drop rather than play the actual game then you have a serious problem on your hands. If I didn't have friends playing the game still I think I would have given up on Destiny by now. When playing with people I'm still having quite a bit of fun, but that tends to be because I'm normally not focusing on the game. I think that Bungie can turn my feelings around with the expansion packs they're going to release. More varied missions, and a tweak to the loot system could do a lot for the game. In fact this Tuesday they're changing the drop system quite a bit. The game has so much potential and I hope that eventually it can be fully realized.

SUUUUPER SMASH BROTHERRRRRSSS

This coming Friday Super Smash Bros. for 3DS will finally be released. I tried not to get excited about it, but I ended up getting psyched anyways. Yes, I hate the way the circle-pad feels on the 3DS for playing Smash, but it will still be a fun time anyways. The new characters are all pretty cool and the game itself is pretty fun. I've played the demo a few times to get a feel for it and I definitely like playing it a lot more than Brawl. It's not quite as fast as Melee was, but it still feels pretty good. It's just a damn fun game to play. When the Wii-U version comes out I'll be 1,000,000 times more hype, but until then I'll be content playing as Peach on the 3DS.

Before Friday I'll be receiving Shadow of Mordor, which is also super exciting. It's been getting crazy good reviews, so hopefully that will be awesome as well. There are a bunch of other games I'll be getting in October as well, but for some reason they're all coming out on the 24th or later. So I'll have a huge gap between when Smash comes out and other games I want to play. I'll try to fit something in there, but it's entirely possible Shadows of Mordor will be long enough to fill that void.

These next few months are going to be hot. I need to go prep myself mentally, so I'll see you guys next time.

     -Manny

Game Time - 7/8/2012

There haven't been a ton of interesting games released on the 3DS so far. I've bought almost all the first party games, but I've been looking for some interesting third party games. When I saw that Square was going to be releasing a Final Fantasy rhythm game I got kind of excited.

Final Fantasy Theatrythm was released this past Tuesday and I wasn't really expecting much from it. It's a rhythm game with Final Fantasy songs. I originally thought it was only going to be good for nostalgia, but it ended up being a whole lot more fun than I expected. I never thought I'd have racked up more than twenty hours on a handheld rhythm game (especially in such a short time span).

I've at least tried to play most of the Final Fantasy games. I even played a two week trial of XI. Somehow I ended up skipping over VIII though. I remember there being a whole lot of hate for it on the internet. Looking around now though I think that the hatred may have misplaced. VII was so loved that I think VIII could only have been a disappointment to fans of the series.

Playing the Final Final Fantasy VIII songs in Theatrhythm made me curious about what it had to offer. My curiosity got the better of me, so I ended up purchasing Final Fantasy VIII on the PlayStation Network. I've only played a few hours of it so far and I don't really know what to think. The battle system diverges greatly from the previous entries in the series while trying to keep the same overall feel. There are a lot of things going on and they're not all apparent at the start.

Somehow I ended up having a very Final Fantasy filled week without even intending to. Unexpected gaming can sometimes be the best kind though.

Final Fantasy Theatrhythm

As I mentioned previously I wasn't expecting much from Theathrhythm. Watching the trailers it looked like a standard rhythm game, and to top it off it looked super easy. If you're judging it from watching gameplay I'd highly recommend you try it out for yourself. The gameplay is a lot more entertaining than it looks and it gets viciously hard on the higher difficulties.

 What's interesting about Theatrhythm is that it tries to combine RPG elements with rhythm gameplay. You make a party of four Final Fantasy characters before you start playing any music. As you play the game they will level up and get stronger. Their stats and abilities won't change the gameplay very much, but they do make small differences. On top of that you can equip items for additional bonuses.

I wasn't expecting the RPG element of Theatrhythm.

At first glance it seems almost as if the RPG elements do absolutely nothing, but that's not exactly true. Sure, on the lower difficulties they don't really matter, but they do when you're trying your hand at harder songs and difficulties. When you mess up in a song you'll lose HP, so the more you have the more time you'll have before completely failing a song. Higher strength will allow you to defeat more enemies in battle, which will net you better and more frequent drops.

Yes, you heard me right. There are battles in this game and that's one of the cool things about it. There are three different game types that vary slightly in order to mix up the gameplay. They all revolve around the same basic concept. There will be one circle, or multiple circles on screen. Colored circles will fly at your circle and you have to tap, hold, or slide the stylus on the screen in time with the music. Red circles are for tapping, green for holding, and yellow for sliding. It's a simple enough concept, but once the notes start flying it can get pretty intense. Hitting notes perfectly will net you criticals, which give you the highest score.

Battles get a whole lot more difficult than this. 

The three game types are battle, field and event. In battle there are four circles (one for each party member) and the notes fly at each character. Each time you hit a note it will damage an enemy on the opposite side of the screen. As you may have guessed getting criticals does more damage. In field type your party leader is traveling across the world and you just have to tap along with the music. Event type is basically the same, except the notes all appear on a pre-made track while scenes from a Final Fantasy game appear in the background.

Theatrhythm is clearly trying to capitalize off of its immense nostalgia, which it does quite well. Where it truly got to me was that it had more depth than your average rhythm game. Despite the fact that it doesn't have a story and its cutesy art style makes me want to vomit I still keep coming back to it for more. There's just a lot to do. I want to unlock all of the characters and songs. For some reason I find it to be extremely fun. It's just an added bonus that I'm pretty good at it. I don't know how much longevity the game will have once I've played all of the songs a million times, but it's hitting the spot for me right now.

If you've been skeptical of this game I really think it's worth trying out. If you don't like Final Fantasy or it's music then this certainly isn't for you.

Final Fantasy VIII

Man, Squall is a serious douche. Before deciding to try out FFVIII I had only experienced him in Kingdom Hearts and Dissidia. Apparently neither of those games colored his character in a proper manner. He's just an outright asshole and on top of that he's super emo. He wants to be left alone and he doesn't want to hear what anyone has to say so far. He actually told someone to go talk to a wall instead of him. What a douche.

Aside from really disliking Squall (or Leon as every other game has tried to tell us) the game is up in the air for me. The battle system is a great departure from all of the previous games. While it's still turn based and has the same options a lot has changed that makes it feel very foreign. For starters it has a was bigger focus on summons. In previous games summons were just attacks used to do some heavy damage, but in VIII they do a whole lot more. They're called GF's and apart from being summoned in battle they make up most of a characters strength.

Not only do your party members level up, but your GF's do as well. They gain power and grant characters abilities. What's interesting is that by equipping magic to the GF's your character will gain stat increases and elemental damage. The fact that you can equip magic to a GF is another part of why VIII is so different. There is no MP, so you can potentially use spells unlimitedly. The catch is that you have to have them first.

There's a whole lot going on here.

When a character has a GF equipped they can use the ability called draw. At certain points in the overworld, or in battle characters can draw spells. This will give characters access to spells. When using draw you'll gain a set number of spell uses, so they're essentially like consumable items. This adds a whole different dynamic to battle, because you need to go in prepared. Spells are also the primary way characters gain strength. While leveling still increases their stats it's not very significant, or at least it isn't a few hours into the game. Equipping magic to the GF's does grant large stat buffs though.

On top of that there aren't very many weapons available. Each character only has a handful they can get throughout the game. Instead of acquiring them you have to upgrade a single weapon with materials acquired through battle or from shops. This makes the GFs even more important, because they're the main way to develop your party.

It's a whole lot different, but it seems like a cool concept. Square was trying to do something different and I can respect that. Learning to do everything is needlessly complicated, but it seems like there will be a ton of customization once I slog through all of the games lingo.

Maybe Squall gets better as the game goes on. At least I hope so...

As far as the story goes I have no idea what to think so far. Not a whole lot has happened. Squall goes to a school for soldiers known as SeeDs. Well, they seem more like mercenaries than soldiers. There is a war going on though and they're sent out on missions. That type of scenario seems ripe for cool characters, but everyone seems iffy so far. Hopefully everything picks up as the game goes on. It seems cool so far, so I'm going to keep on going with it.

EVO 2012

GET HYPE!

I took a break from watching this year's EVO in order to write this. The Super Street Fighter IV finals are on right now and I'm anxious to get back to watching. There's something awesome about the hype that surrounds fighting games. I almost lost my mind during the Marvel 3 finals. I really wanted Yipes to win, but sadly he was eliminated yesterday.


In fact, everyone I want to win gets eliminated during tournaments. Combofiend was doing fairly well, but he ended up losing to F Champ. I feel okay with F Champ taking the whole thing though, because at least it wasn't Chris G and his super lame Morrigan style.


It just occurred to me right now that most people will have no idea what the hell I'm talking about. For those that don't know EVO is the worlds largest annual fighting game tournament. It's intense, so if you haven't every seen it you should take a look.

My brother is super into fighting games so I've watched my fair share of tournaments with him. That's how I got to know about a lot of the people in the community. It's hard to explain, but it makes all of the matches way more exciting when you know who's playing.

Anyways, this has been another week in gaming. I have no idea what's coming up in the week ahead, but that's part of the fun.

See you next time.

     -Manny