dear friends: a sermon on the subject of Final Fantasy V by Jibril

My favorite Final Fantasy titles are V, VIII, Tactics and XII. When I tell people that, most can understand Tactics, but they're usually a little puzzled by the other three -- V and VIII are usually considered the weakest of their generational trilogies, both occupying their respective middle slots -- and XII is mostly written off as "too different" from the rest of the series, which is a ridiculous notion considering the amount of evolution Final Fantasy has gone through over the years. I'm not going to be talking about that now, though; I'm going to focus on Final Fantasy V.

Sandwiched between FFIV and FFVI, FFV is sort of like the unfortunate and overlooked middle child to its younger and older siblings. It wasn't even released outside of Japan until 1999's Final Fantasy Anthology compilation, and was later enhanced and ported to the Gamebody Advance in 2006.


The most common complaint made about FFV is that its story is sub par. Sure enough, the story essentially pans out like FFI part 3 (part 2 being FFIII), involving four warriors inheriting the powers of the four elemental crystals and using them to destroy an evil that threatens the world. To put this in perspective, let's have a history lesson.

HISTORY LESSON: START------->

Until the PSX era, Final Fantasy developed in a very distinct pattern. Final Fantasy I was the story of four nameless heroes bearing the power of the crystals. It introduced many of the concepts and design aspects that are still used in the series today, taking heavy influence from Dragon Quest and, by extension, early western RPGs such as Ultima and The Bard's Tale. As the first game in the series, it didn't have an overly complex plot. Then again, no game did at that point, really, as storytelling was even more of an afterthought than it is now. Still, like any other NES game, you could say it was a gameplay-focused affair -- and I don't care what delusions Hironobu Sakaguchi had about creating a compelling narrative, because on the NES, it wasn't happening.

Final Fantasy II was more of an experiment. Aside from the obvious deviations in the character progression system, where your stats increased based on the frequency of certain battle actions rather than experience points and levels, it innovated the way dialog worked, allowing you to memorize key words during conversations and ask people about them to learn new information. Otherwise, though, the game was much more focused on the character-driven story than anything else; probably to save face if the experiments failed (which they did, horribly).

In Final Fantasy III, you start to see the pattern form. The story was extremely similar to FFI's, featuring four youths inheriting the power of the crystals. It returned to the more open, gameplay-driven style of FFI, introducing the job system, which was a genius way to implement character customization: essentially an improvement on the original FFI class system, you had four characters who could change their classes at will, rather than choosing four to start with and being stuck with them. There were also a ton of new jobs to choose from, with more being unlocked as you progressed through the story. Also new was the concept of multiple "worlds" existing on the overall map; in this case, you started the game on a large floating continent, and later, you left via airship and actually explored the much larger overworld.

Final Fantasy IV, predictably, was more like FFII: it was character-driven, focusing on the love triangle between Cecil, Rosa and Kain, and later, Cecil's relationship with Golbez, giving us the first real "aww snap!" plot twist of the series. For its gameplay innovations, it was the first game to lock your characters into certain classes and not give you any customization options, as well as the only game in the series to allow the use of up to five party members.

<------- HISTORY LESSON: END

You can probably guess where this is going: Final Fantasy V is a continuation of FFI and FFIII. It utilizes the job system, focuses on deep, flexible gameplay, and uses the same story structure of four warriors using the power of the crystals. Though the plot is certainly more complex and nuanced than FFI and III, it's nowhere near the maturity and depth of FFIV or VI.

The job system is balanced and made more accessible, eliminating annoyances like stat penalties after changing jobs until you fight x battles. It also introduces the genius that is skill learning. If you get to a certain level in any given job, you'll learn its skills -- and you can equip one learned skill to any other job (two to the Freelancer job and three to Mime). White magic on a Knight, equip swords on a Black Mage -- pretty much anything you'd want is possible here, offering extreme levels of customization and replay value.


Totally not ABP grinding guys
So, why do I love this game so much? Well, an IRC quote can sum it up:

[01:06] [~Jibril> gameplay-wise
[01:06] [~Jibril> FFV is definitely my favorite ff game
[01:06] [~Jibril> by far
[01:07] [~Jibril> nothing else comes close :(
[01:07] [Mirage> yeahyou'reright
[01:07] [~Jibril> well, FFT does, but it's not as easy to pick up and play
[01:07] [~Jibril> and X-2, i guess
[01:08] [Mirage> X2 yeah
[01:08] [~Jibril> but FFV is just perfection of the job system

It's mainly the job system that does it for me, because honestly, when I think of Final Fantasy, the first thing that springs to mind is the job system. V and Tactics, two games that have essentially perfected it, are two of my favorite games, let alone two of my favorite Final Fantasy games. I've also played FFXI for upwards of five years, and that game uses the job system to great effect as well.

There's this intangible aura about the game that gives you a great feeling of adventure, like the game is less about the characters and plot, and more about you exploring the world within it. This, actually, is the same kind of feeling I get from FFI, FFIII, FFVIII and FFXII. Other games, too, like Star Ocean 2 and Tales of Symphonia. These are games that try their hardest not to pigeon hole you into playing the game a certain way, while maintaining enough structure to not let you feel utterly lost like you would in a game like Fallout or The Elder Scrolls. They have a very unpretentious feel to them; they're more concerned with letting the player run wild than telling a great story or making some kind of social commentary. This is the building block upon which all games should be built, as first and foremost, they're supposed to enjoyable to play. Sadly, not everyone seems to think this way.


It's disappointing that such an elementary concept is so rare in games, but I feel like most of my favorite games of all-time are developed with it in mind. They're the games that are not abrasive to play in the slightest; games you can always come back to and replay just because they're fun, familiar and make you feel good. If the game can make you feel like the adventure is yours and not the character's, as FFV proves, you don't really need a terribly complex, or even good, story. The only incentive you need to keep going is the simple fact that you'll see more of the game, and when a game is crafted as well as FFV is, it's completely worth it for that alone.

Another trait these games seem to share is a soundtrack that's very easy on the ears. Not necessarily good or bad, just easy to listen to -- this is something FFV has in spades, and it really brings a great sense of immersion to the game. Of course, FFV's soundtrack is certainly very good on its own, but the way it fits into the game and gives personality to its landscapes is exceptional. All three world map themes are absolutely perfect: the first, "Four Valiant Hearts," sounding appropriately adventurous; the second, "Unknown Lands," sounding ominous and dense. The final theme, "New World," sounds just like you'd expect: a combination of the two. You'd be surprised how often game soundtracks aren't done this well -- I play a lot of games where the music is so out of place that it almost hurts to listen to while playing, even if the music itself is fine on its own.

Though FFV looks like a slightly upgraded FFIV, the plot and characters are mediocre at best (though the recent GBA translation remedies this a bit with a fantastically humorous new take on the dialog), and most people overlook it in favor of IV or VI, I would argue that FFV has more personality than FFIV and more heart than FFVI. Looking at their whole packages, I would say that FFVI is a better game. However, I'll probably replay FFV throughout my life far more than either of those games.


First, you have to !Flip it over on its back
As for why most people overlook it, I dunno. I know that most people who play RPGs are astonishingly stupid -- the concept of gameplay being more important than story is a foreign one to many. Whatever -- I'll be over here playing games like FFV, Star Ocean 2, Grandia and Valkyrie Profile while they relive their angsty teenage years watching all their favorite animated movies with interactive interludes. They can keep it.

-Jibril | LJ

broton bropedoes by Jibril

It's probably expected of me to praise Star Ocean 4 (I refuse to use its silly subtitle) as if it were the final seal on the rapture of video gaming. Star Ocean 2 and 3 are two of my favorite games ever -- my nick was shamelessly stolen from the former -- and I've logged, probably, upwards of 500 hours into those games combined.

I'll start off by saying that, as far as I'm concerned, Star Ocean is a trilogy that ended with "Till the End of Time." It was one of those rare examples of a series getting better as it progressed, peaking with SO3's innovative and intense battle system and its widely debated plot twist and ending. The best creations are polarizing. Some people hated SO3, others absolutely loved it. It struck a perfect chord with me, innovating aspects of battle systems no one else had the balls to change -- you could take MP damage, and sure enough, if it was reduced to 0, you died. The obligatory battle skills ("killer moves" in SO2) consumed HP rather than MP. Mages were made useful, their spells inflicting multiple hits and animating in real time. Everything brimmed with the balance of a well-made fighting game; even the "low tier" characters like Adray and Roger could be devastating when geared properly.

I almost feel like SO3 was perfect, actually. It brought some form of closure to the story, as ambiguous as it was, and the battle system was so utterly masterful that, looking back, a sequel was unnecessary.

Yet, here it is. Star Ocean 4.



Leading up to its release, I thought it would be amazing. Expectations were high, and all that. The screenshots were beautiful, the battle system looked like SO3 on meth, and the promise of commanding your own spaceship and traversing numerous planets throughout the course of the game seemed nothing short of epic.

The first thing I was disappointed with was the character designs, which everyone saw before release. They were bad. Like, "holy shit, this is worse than FFIX" bad. SO2 had fantastic designs, and though SO3's weren't as good, they were solid aside from Fayt and Sophia. Honestly, I can't think of a single character design in SO4 that amounts to anything beyond mediocrity.

Just a couple weeks before release, it was revealed that they'd be changing the UI and character portraits for the North American release. The UI change was fine; it looks very sleek and easy on the eyes, as opposed to the overly bright and clearly Persona-inspired Japanese version. What got me was the character portraits, which were changed from standard anime illustrations to quasi-realistic CG. I can only assume it was done to appeal more to a western audience. This has been debated among my circle of friends, and in a nutshell, my take on it is this: it's not going to help sales, because for every person who's stupid enough to buy a game based on what character portraits look like, there's going to be someone who doesn't buy the game because they were changed. If they were going to change it at all, they should have included an option for either style. It was a stupid move from both a business and artistic standpoint, and there's no excuse for it.

That's not even getting into whether or not you think it looks good. I think it looks absolutely god-awful, and I'll tell you why: the character designs are bad enough on their own, and they don't need the uncanny valley making them look worse. The safe haven of generic anime was their only saving grace. For the people saying "it fits the style of SO4 better than anime," no, it doesn't. Star Ocean has always been an anime-inspired game; changing that now is silly, and sure enough, it hasn't changed. Look at the in-game character models. They look like anime. Did they actually think that was going to get passed people who wouldn't buy a game if it looked anime-inspired? "Oh, this game sure looks like some weeaboo shit, but hey, the portraits are kind of realistic! I'm totally copping this." Happens all the time, I bet.




Of course, the portraits themselves also carry the same style as the in-game models and the anime art, except they look worse because they've been translated into 3D and then tweaked to look "realistic." Derp. I don't know whose decision it was, but they should be kicked squarely in the balls.

Oh, right, the game. I bought it on day one, and from the outset, once the beauty of the environments stopped impressing me so much, I slowly crawled to the conclusion that SO4 has no soul. Actually, that's not fair. It has a soul, it's just nothing like SO2 or SO3, and is also vastly inferior to both. This is purely from a presentational standpoint, though -- particularly the pacing and soundtrack.

Star Ocean 4 is paced like a retarded mule trying to carry four tons of bullshit across the Sonoran Desert. Unlike SO2 and SO3, where you spent a good amount of time hanging around town and getting to know your environment and NPCs, SO4 is constantly pushing you toward something else. Some of the dungeons are far, far too long; there's a whole segment on the first disc where you spend upwards of five hours in a single dungeon. Though you have a sense of freedom with where you can go, it's only there sometimes, as there's large chunks of the game where you're unable to leave whatever planet you're on, which is highly disappointing.



As alluded to before, each individual planet goes rather undeveloped in terms of its lore and predicaments. With around five to explore, and each one being fairly big (not nearly as big as SO2's Expel and Nede, or SO3's Elicoor, of course) and visually breath taking, there wasn't enough room to develop them beyond what they did. I wouldn't call it a "flaw," because other great games utilize a similar structure (hello KoTOR), but when your game's design team is saying things like "Star Ocean is about the world, not the characters," you'd think they'd put more time into developing a small amount of areas thoroughly, like in SO2 and 3, rather than many very sparingly.

Unlike the other games that use a similar structure of planet-hopping, there is no way to fast-travel back to your spaceship. If you want to do some private actions or partake in some item creation (why you must be on the ship to do item creation is beyond me, and is a huge, huge flaw), you have to walk all the way back, no matter where you are. This gets especially grating on disc 3 when the ship is crash-landed on the final planet, and you have to swap discs to leave, and swap back to return to your ship.

Yeah, some of the planets are actually stored on disc 1 and 2, but not 3. This means that if you want to go back to the earlier planets from disc 3, you have to swap. This is one argument I can see for "SO4 should have been on PS3," because it wouldn't have been a problem on blu-ray with mandatory installs. SO4 could have been two discs, probably, but instead, it's three, with the second and third discs gorged in cutscenes. Yeah, cutscenes. Long-ass, Xenosaga-style cutscenes. There's not as many as in XS, and they're skippable, but come on, this is Star Ocean. tri-Ace, what the hell is wrong with you? It's puzzling considering how little effort was put into the game's script... and voice acting... and um, plot, at least until the last few hours.

The soundtrack just further displays how tired Motoi Sakuraba is and how badly he needs a break from making music. While the battle theme is decent enough, it can't help the boring orchestral pieces that constantly bombard you when exploring the planets; they're so out of place and generic that they actually bog down the experience a bit. In Star Ocean, we're used to hearing Sakuraba bring out his moodier, more experimental side, and it just doesn't happen much here, opting for a "safer" sound that oozes mediocrity.

You could say the same for the whole game, actually. It's safe. All three prior games took a lot of risks, introducing new ideas and constantly improving. Gameplay-wise, SO4 doesn't feel like a sequel to SO3, it feels like a sidegrade. The battle system is certainly very good, but there's a lot of strategic elements of SO3 that are no longer present, such as the fury meter and MP damage. There are no "weak" and "strong" hits anymore, reverting to a more SO2-style system. It, actually, plays a lot like the PSP games, downplaying melee spam and emphasizing chaining your standard melee combo into battle skills, which can be chained together for bonus damage, similar to SO3. Also returning from SO2 is the four character party, which I am honestly indifferent toward by now; SO3 made three characters work so well that I didn't feel it was necessary to go back.



There's also the blindside system, which involves holding B and then hitting the left analog stick left or right at the right moment, triggering a flashy slow motion sequence where you quickly dive behind the enemy's back for free critical hits. It's fun, but almost every boss in the game has some kind of trick to beating them that involves using blindside. It cheapens the experience, because it becomes less about preparation and more about blindsiding as much as possible. It's hard to beat most bosses without doing it, in fact, because their defense is ridiculously high unless you hit their "weak point" which is usually located somewhere behind them.

Then you have some Tales-inspired attack system similar to mystic artes, except you can chain them together with other characters through quick-time events. Actually, it's more like quickenings from FFXII, I suppose. I rarely use it unless I'm dying and a boss is at low HP, or something. I didn't feel like it added much to the battle system.

Item creation has always been a big draw to the series, but even it has its problems here. As mentioned above, you must be on your ship to create items, a far cry from the freedom of SO1 and 2, where you could create things literally anywhere, and SO3, where you just had to be in a town with a workshop (most had them). You actually have to create a recipe before you can create an item, which seems like a pointless annoyance. The actual creation of items is improved, however, as you just gather the ingredients and make it. No dicking around with mashing X to get the right price or picking an ingredient and hoping you get what you want. Synthesis also returns, allowing you to customize weapons and armor as you see fit.

What's missing, though, is the incredibly deep inventor system from SO3, which I felt should have been integrated into the game somehow. There also seems to be less stuff to make in general, but that's just the feeling I get from what I've done with it and I could be wrong.

Another hallmark in Star Ocean has always been the ability to make choices that ultimately result in a different endgame party. In SO4, you're stuck with the same eight no matter what you do. No, Crowe never joins. He is to SO4 what Flynn was to ToV. It's especially disappointing after he whips out dual lightsabers (seriously) and fucking owns a group of soldiers the first time you actually meet him. Sorry, no badass characters for you. The only remotely "badass" character you ever get is Arumat, and he's just a stereotypical scythe-wielding dude who talks about death and the battlefield all the time.

Of course, you also have the obligatory post-game dungeons, which are probably really hard. I haven't tried them yet, so I can't comment much on them.



The feeling I get from SO4 is that, possibly, tri-Ace did not want to make this game. I also get the feeling that it would have been better on PS3, due to the much greater storage capacity of blu-ray discs, and being able to incorporate mandatory installs. There could have been more characters, more features, no disc swapping, etc. -- but there isn't, and I blame the 360 for that. I also blame tri-Ace for stuffing way too much cutscene into a game that no one expects a good story out of. Still, the main flaws of it are not console-exclusive, and honestly, unless they take a rather large change in direction, I hope they don't make Star Ocean 5. I'd rather see more original IPs in the vein of the original Valkyrie Profile or Radiata Stories. Star Ocean ended at 3, and this was unnecessary fan service that only stagnated the series.

Is it a good game? Yeah, it is. If you liked any of the past SO games, you should play it for the gameplay alone, which is still as solid as ever. Don't, under any circumstance, play it because you liked the story of any of the past games. It doesn't have the epic, detailed shit that made SO2 awesome, and it doesn't have the daring, existential tone that SO3 had. It's safe, by the book, and won't turn any heads. It even seems to lack the trademark Star Ocean atmosphere for a more generic and sci-fi Star Trek feel, which is strange to say because SO has always been influenced by Star Trek.

Funny how that works.

-Jibril | LJ

Let's Talk About Games: The Sony Consoles, pt.2 - Flower, LittleBigPlanet & Fallout 3 by Ichimonji

Playstation Network

Flower

I didn’t really know what to expect when I purchased this game. I’ve never played flOw, so I don’t know much about the type of games Thatgamecompany creates, but reading about Flower I had only heard good things. It looked arty and innovative, yet simple in concept. I was intrigued. Despite all of this though, I did have my doubts. I found out that you can only play the game by utilizing the SIXAXIS functions, so I immediately thought that Flower was going to be gimmicky with awkward controls. Also, after viewing a bunch of screenshots I actually didn’t think it looked that good. I don’t know what all the fuss is about, I thought. Well, I bought it, played it, and completed it, and now I know.

Flower is actually a very wholesome gaming experience and I never expected that I would enjoy it so much. It’s definitely a title where you need to play it first hand before you can appreciate it, and no amount of screenshots or gameplay videos will do it justice. The premise is simple. There are six levels and in each level you start with a single flower petal. You control a singular breeze with by holding down any button on the controller and changing directions with the SIXAXIS. Your goal is to bloom as many flowers as you possibly can in order to advance through the areas. It’s simple. However, there is a lot more depth to this game than just that. About half way through Flower it takes a turn for the unexpected. I never thought I’d have to say this for this type of game, but I’m going to be discussing spoilers in the rest this article, so if you don’t want the big Flower twist to be ruined for you then skip over this section.

Before I get into the underlying plot of this game, I want to talk about some of the technical aspects. The art direction for Flower is amazing. The colours are so vibrant and the setting is very relaxing. The reason I said that screenshots cannot do it justice is because you need to experience it yourself. Most of the locations consist of vast fields of tall grass reminiscent of a beautiful countryside, and when you blow through the blades, everything moves. Every single blade of grass. It’s the most lively setting that I’ve ever experienced in a videogame. It feels like you’re disconnected from reality and you’re drifting through a beautiful dream world. I would go so far as to say that Flower is an excellent stress remover. After a long day of work or even a long session of Gears 2, play Flower. I guarantee that you’ll feel good. It’s a masterpiece and it’s a good example to prove to the public that videogames are indeed an art form.

The SIXAXIS works really well. In fact, I couldn’t imagine playing the game without that function. It certainly wouldn’t be the same experience if you had to control using the analog sticks. It just works. It’s probably the only PS3 game that actually uses the SIXAXIS functions really well. I also like the fact that you can pick any button to hold down in order to make the wind blow faster, so you can play according to your own preference. I personally palmed the controller like if I was screwing in a light bulb while holding down one of the top buttons. Sony really loves these simple, yet extremely fun games, a la Locoroco and Patapon.

At the beginning of each level up to a certain point in the game; you’re shown a short clip of what’s happening in a bustling city street. It reminds you about how hectic or bleak reality is and then it immediately takes you into the relaxing world of Flower. When you eventually get to the fourth level the setting starts to change. As you’re playing through the level the sky turns pitch black and ominous music begins to play. These strange electrical structures start to protrude from the earth while the aura feels like you’re suddenly in a post-apocalyptic future. This totally caught me off guard. It’s a bit frightening as well. At first I thought I somehow did something terribly wrong, but then the next level showed up and I realized that this was part of the game. For the rest of the game afterwards you’re venturing through the eerie darkness of an abandoned metropolis. You can also get damaged as well via electrical wires or structures falling on top of you. By the end of the game you turn the metropolis back into a beautiful field using the power of nature, while in the real world you realize that nothing has really changed. This is possibly one of the craziness twists I’ve ever seen in a videogame, just because it was so damn unexpected. It sent chills down my spine. It was amazing and I loved it. I’m sure there’s some kind of hidden message to humanity within Flower but I’m not one for putting too much thought into reading in-between the lines, so I’ll save that for you extremists out there.

Flower isn’t that long of a game as each level is no longer than ten minutes or less and there are only six levels, but this is the type of game that you can play over and over again. Even the credits at the end are part of the game. The only thing that is out of place in Flower are the trophies. As much of a trophy fanatic as I am; I do understand that the trophies kind of ruin the experience. They take a game that is meant for you to play casually and make you feel warm inside and somehow transform it into a frustrating experience. It’s actually only one trophy in particular that does this. In the fifth level there is a trophy for completing the area without getting hit by anything at all. This is actually moderately difficult to do. I ended up getting the trophy, but it did take me quite a few tries. I recommend just playing the game all the way through without trying for any of the trophies and then come back later to get them all once you’re done.

Downloadable content just keeps getting better and better. Flower, Braid, and LostWinds are some of the most fun and unique games I’ve played. Dear future, please keep releasing games like these.

Playstation 3

LittleBigPlanet Metal Gear Solid 4 Level Pack

LittleBigPlanet is an awesome game, and I played the shit out of it. In fact, I’m only missing two trophies. Or so I thought. I was looking through my trophies the other day and found that ten new trophies were added to the list, so I looked them up. It turns out that Media Molecule released a Metal Gear DLC pack. It was only like five bucks to purchase and it gave me an excuse to play LittleBigPlanet again, as well as the fact that I adore Metal Gear Solid 4, so of course I got it. I am baffled by the fact that I hadn’t heard about this DLC until now though.

The levels themselves are pretty fun. You take your Sackboy through five MGS4 themed stages, along with two bonus levels. Music is taken directly from MGS4 itself. They try to maintain the feel of MGS4, but it’s still very cutesy. When you begin, you’re introduced to a new weapon called the Paintinator and it basically acts as your M4 Custom for this offshoot. If you’ve ever wondered what a platformer stealth crossover would feel like, this is probably the closest that you’ll get since both elements are present. The trophies are pretty difficult to achieve; it requires a bit of skill to get them all. Most of the trophies are either speed based or completing a level without dying.

All in all it’s a pretty cool pack and worth the money. The structure of the levels is pretty clever and they’re moderately long too. I’m glad that they finally released something that isn’t costumes for LBP. I’d recommend spending your bones on this rather than any of the other content that MM has released.

Fallout 3

I’m not going to go into much detail on this game right now as I’m not very far. Instead, I’ll make a lengthy post about it once I’ve completed the game. I’ve only finished a couple story missions and a few side missions after leaving the Vault since buying this game. Admittedly, I haven’t played much of it at all recently. I’ve been caught up in all of my other videogames. I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with the game (with the exception of some obvious glitches), I just haven’t gotten around to playing much of it. I actually think it’s very addictive and I’m sure that once I start playing it again that I’ll be hooked once more.

So far though, I’m really likely the feel of this game. I enjoy the futuristic nuclear wasteland of Washington D.C. yet still maintaining the style of propaganda from World War II. I’m also pretty intrigued by the concept of the storyline and desperately want to know what’s up with my father (who is voiced by the amazing Liam Neeson). From the moment you leave Vault 101 the world is your oyster. You can pretty much venture anywhere you want and do a million hours of side events if you choose. Most of the mechanics are extremely similar to Oblivion. It’s pretty much Oblivion with guns. You can shoot in real time, although it doesn’t feel like a shooter. It’s an RPG through and through. Primarily because every creature has stats and levels and it’s less about relying on skill and more about leveling up and obtaining better gear. A lot of the people you interact with have really quirky personalities, and the world is full of freaks. It’s definitely an interesting game.

I’m going to stop here because I don’t want to delve too much into the aspects of this game; I’d have nothing to talk about in my future post about Fallout 3 if I did so. I’m also not far enough to even understand a lot of the elements that this game has to offer. But yeah, so far I’m really enjoying it.

--

I was going to write about my experiences with the Resident Evil 5 and F.E.A.R. 2 demos, but I plan on buying F.E.A.R. 2 really soon as well as playing RE5 once that comes out. So I’ll just note my impressions of both of those games once I do so.

~ Ichimonji | LJ

Let's Talk About Games: The Sony Consoles, pt.1 - Burnout Paradise by Ichimonji

Playstation 3

Burnout Paradise

Before discussing the actual contents of this game I just want to point out how cool it is that I can download the entire game and all of its DLCs in one package on the Playstation Network. Which is, of course, exactly what I did. Just to clarify, Burnout Paradise is a retail game, but you can also download it if you wish on the PSN. I actually debated about this for a little while because I adore my collection of retail games and I love having my collection on display. Although, I was persuaded into this method for two reasons: I didn’t have to go to a store to purchase it (see: laziness), and it’s automatically saved to my hard drive so I can instantly switch between playing Burnout and a disc formatted game.

Another thing that’s really cool about Burnout Paradise is that it’s only $19.99. That’s astounding. If you’ve played this game, you’ll understand that it’s easily worth a $50-60 investment. I mean, I see games out on shelves like Alvin and the Chipmunks for PS2 and WarioWare: Smooth Moves selling for $30 or $50. That’s ludicrous. Yes, I know WarioWare is actually a really good game. I’ve played a lot of it. However, taken directly from Casey’s mouth “It could easily be a downloadable game” and it’s not worth $50. With the amount of content in Burnout Paradise, they’re basically giving you this game.

Anyway, let’s talk about what you can do in this fantastically affordable title. In this installment they pretty much changed up the entire Burnout formula. It’s now a sandbox title where you can cruise around a massive city and take on whatever missions or challenges you choose. There are a ton of things to do at any given moment. Firstly, you can complete the events, which range from timed, skill, speed, or racing challenges. There are 120 of them around Paradise City, and every time you complete one, it adds a notch to your driver’s license. You start your license with a learners permit and you work your way up the grades from D to A until you get your Burnout license, in which you’ll have beaten the game. By “beaten” I mean that’s when the credits roll, I don’t mean that’s all there is to do, but I’ll come back to that later. When you complete a certain amount of events you’ll get a notification that a type of vehicle is driving around the city. When this happens you can choose to find it and take it down in order to forever obtain it. This is how you get the majority of your vehicles. The other way to get vehicles is to meet certain requirements, for instance, getting a license upgrade will give you a new car which will be left in your junk yard. If you don’t feel like doing events, you can go and find the majority of collectibles, such as: billboards, yellow fences, and super jumps.

As I mentioned earlier, Paradise City is pretty big. It’s beautifully designed too. It’s divided into five different districts going from such scenery as the heart of the city, the port, the country and et cetera. You can tell that they took their design from many popular real life cities. I’ve noticed similarities to New York (what a surprise, right), Vancouver, Madrid, and I’m sure some part of Texas. It all looks very detailed and just simply well crafted. I found that the construction was perfect and I could just enjoy myself by cruising around and finding new areas. Although you can totally tell that the city was created for the sole purpose of stunts and drag racing as there are jumps, broken freeways, and conveniently structured roads scattered everywhere. Paradise City isn’t nearly as big as Liberty City from GTAIV, but it’s definitely big enough to get lost in. Oh, and while I’m on the topic, the graphics are amazing as well.

If you’re a big Burnout fan and you’re wondering “Man, this doesn’t sound like Burnout at all”, well don’t you worry, because it still has Showtimes. At any point in time you have the option to press L1 and R1 at the same time which will seamlessly switch into this mode called: Showtime. Once you’re in this phase your goal is to crash into as many cars as possible by repeatedly tapping the X button as you guide the direction of your car. It’s definitely a lot easier and faster to rack up the points in this installment, but then again they’ve also changed the entire scheme for this game, so it kind of fits with the pace. Also, when you crash your car at any given point in the game, whether it be a Showtime or not, it is absolutely awesome. The crashes are so brutal; it’s kind of a good thing that there are no people driving the cars.

Every car has their own unique time trial to complete. After you’ve done so, you’ll be awarded an upgraded version of that type. There are 75 different vehicles to attain, not including the DLC packs. Every car is classified in one of three ways: stunt, speed, and aggression. I think those categories speak for themselves. I personally prefer the Speed class cars, because they’re the only ones that can do burnouts, the handling is amazing, and they are, well, fast. The aggression types might be strong but they can’t turn corners worth shit. I don’t really have anything against the stunt type cars; they’re just not fast enough. I like ‘em fast. In addition to all these cars you can also choose a few motorcycles to ride on, however, the game is served to you with an entire different style if you’re going with this. With bikes, you can’t do any events; you’re pretty much just limited to beating the fastest running time per street, called a Road Rule. You can still collect whatever you want around the city though. If you’re a fan of getting trophies then I wouldn’t recommend touching the bikes until you do all the trophy requirements for the cars, because it seems that a lot of trophies are glitchy in this game. Criterion really needs to sort that out.

If you bored of the single player stuff, you can also go online with up to eight players and do some co-op events or challenges. There are 490 regular and timed events to do online, and they actually mix it up, so you’re not just doing the same thing over and over again. That’s the best part; it’s not really repetitive. Of course you don’t have to just do events; you can race with each other, or do a variety of games like: Marked Man (cops and robbers) or Stunt Run. You can also just compete for high scores for like barrel rolls and air time and things like that. It’s great fun. I actually think that the online aspect is one of the strongest areas of Burnout Paradise.

So, how long does it take to get your Burnout License and ‘beat’ the game? Probably about 16-18 hours if you’re not doing anything else. But you’ll most likely be doing other things; if you’re not then I don’t think you understand the concept for this type of game. But anyway, once you’ve gotten the license, they immediately give you the option for try for the Burnout Elite License for even more cars and etc. This is literally a game that keeps on giving. Not just for that reason, but because Criterion keeps releasing these DLC packs. A little while ago they released the Party Pack for $7.99 where you can play with up to eight players locally (not online) and pass the controller around while you compete with each other by performing various mundane tasks. It’s fun, yes, but I don’t think it’s worth $7.99. I bought it anyway because of the crazy amount of easily attainable silver trophies that you can get (I’m a trophy whore). I forgive them for this though, because the actual game is only $19.99. Another pack that they just released only yesterday is a set of four legendary cars for $1.99 each except for one which is $3.99. I bought two of the $1.99 cars. One was really shitty and I immediately regret buying, but the other, the Nighthawk (Speed class of course), is amazing. I use the Nighthawk for everything and it was a breeze to get all the trophies with. That one is my baby and totally worth two bucks. I think the $3.99 car is a hover car or something crazy, but I personally don’t feel that any single vehicle is worth four dollars.

Of course though, this is a videogame and no videogame is perfect. There are always faults. First of all, the censorship in this game is ridiculous. I mentioned before that there are no people in the cars. There are actually no people anywhere. It kind of feels like the movie Cars, except the cars don’t speak. And they don’t look childish. And they crash into things all day. When you look at the city in this perspective, it all seems so bleak. It’s a good thing that you have a human radio DJ that speaks to you from time to time to remind you that there’s life in this fair city. Apparently the reason for this is because Criterion didn’t want to show people what it would actually look like in a real car crash. The censorship doesn’t stop there. They bleep out the album name in Avril Lavigne’s ‘The Best Damn Thing’. Yeah, ‘damn’ is a swear according to this game. Damn is a word that is carelessly passed around in Saturday morning cartoons for gods sake. It’s kind of hard to take in all of the ‘cool attitude’ vibe that they send out seriously, when they have to censor themselves so much. Speaking of Avril Lavigne, the soundtrack is pretty bad. For starters, you don’t have that much of a selection. There are less than forty songs that are extremely oddly matched which no radio DJ should ever have playing on the same station. It especially sucks for people who only enjoy one or two genres of music, because they literally only have one or two songs per genre. It’s weird. It’s like they tried pleasing everybody by adding every style of music, but ended up just adding nutmeg and cyanide poison to mushroom soup. They added some Saosin and Killswitch for people like me, then it goes too some catchy beats which I don’t mind like N.E.R.D. and The Styles, and goes directly into classical music, which they play for like fifteen songs in a row. Again, it’s weird. Other than that, it’s all good. Sometimes certain events can get frustrating, but you can quickly solve that problem by switching cars.

Well, you may or may not know, but I received my first platinum trophy via this game just today. It turns out that you don’t need all of the bike trophies or the online trophies in order to get it. I’m not sure what exactly you need, since I had thought that the bike trophies were part of the original trophy line-up, but it was far less than I had imagined. This makes Burnout Paradise the easiest to get platinum in my mind. I had thought that the easiest was Prince of Persia or Uncharted, but both of those games require multiple playthroughs and you can easily get the platinum in Burnout in about twenty hours. It was definitely really fun to obtain though. I’m not even close to being done with this game too. I still feel the need to get some of the extra trophies and do the online challenges. Anyway, I think I’ve talked about everything I want to in the Burnout front. So yeah, I like this game. A lot.

~ Ichimonji | LJ

a wise man once said, "fuck 'em if they can't take a joke" by Jibril

Why isn't it more like Chrono Trigger? Why are there so many characters? Why is the plot so confusing?
Man, I hate this game!
Here's a statement I can't back up with any amount of factual evidence: most gamers probably aren't artists in any capacity, or at least in the field of writing stories or anything that involves the written word. If they are, most probably aren't very good at it. Most of the people who plan, direct, produce and write video games, on the other hand, are. I'm not going to sit here and say you have to be an artist to critique one, but I have to ask -- especially when so many people miss the point of Chrono Cross entirely -- who are you to judge them?

I think it's a problem of expectations. Chrono Cross is not Chrono Trigger pt. 2. The team that created it is different from the original CT dream team. The members who remained, namely Masato Kato, probably didn't want to make the same game twice. I think the goal was to take Chrono Trigger -- something that was ultimately simple and light-hearted -- and make it into something more serious and complex, while building a new story on top of the existing lore that didn't necessarily draw from the same influences. It was supposed to be something different. I always felt they succeeded in this, because it's one of the darker and more complicated (overly so at times; Xenogears rubbing off) games I've played. Still, it's far from perfect, which is what I'm going to discuss here. That, and ways it could have been better.

What Sucks: Gameplay

a. The broad side of a barn

Chrono Cross's gameplay is, for the most part, very good. There are a few very strange and bizarre problems, though, that bring the game down a bit.


Right.
The first is your hit rate. In battle, much like Xenogears, you divide your attacks into combos consisting of weak, medium and strong attacks. You have a set hit rate for each -- weak hits are more accurate, strong hits are less so, etc. -- and connecting on any of them will raise the hit rate for all three for the remainder of the combo. The problem? The hit% displayed is flat-out incorrect. You'll routinely miss three hits in a row with 70+ hit rate. Missing is common at 90+, even. There's probably someone on GameFAQs, or somewhere, that has figured out the exact cause of this, but here's my theory: I believe the game calculates those hit rates before checking the evasion rate of the enemy. So, when you think you're going to be hitting 90% of the time, it might actually be closer to 70-80%, depending on the enemy's evasion. Frustration commences.

b. Serge is Superman, Batman and The Flash put together


Marcy hates Serge because he is fucking OP.
Main characters in RPGs are usually at least one of the most powerful characters in the game. Chrono Cross takes this and runs with it. The problem lies within its unique, but flawed leveling system: you don't have experience levels, but rather, each time you defeat a boss, you get a "star level" along with some stat upgrades. Between bosses, when you fight standard enemies, you'll get small max HP upgrades (usually +1 or 2) at the end of every battle, up until you get a "mini-level," in which you'll get a boost to a number of stats. This is the only time your base stats will go up outside of gaining a star level, and it's a fantastic way to discourage grinding because it only takes a few battles to get them. The first issue is that if you miss the mini-level because you didn't fight enough battles between stars, you lose it forever, and you're permanently weaker than your max potential. The second issue is that anyone who's not in your party will miss out on mini-levels, so unless you want to rigorously grind for hours getting the level for every character (and again, there are a lot of them), you're going to have characters who are significantly weaker than the ones you commonly use.

So how does this translate to Serge being way stronger than everyone else? Because when Serge gets transferred into Lynx, he loses all his characters and has to recruit new ones (you get the old ones back when you get his body back). This is actually a significant chunk of the game we're talking about, and you probably gain around 15 star levels between Serge losing his body and getting it back. Therefore, he's the only character who gets every mini-level, or at least all the ones you bother getting. Naturally, he'll end up much stronger than every other character in the game. I suppose you might not consider this particular aspect a "flaw," especially as the game is pretty easy as it is, but with Sunglasses and the Mastermune, Serge does so much more damage than any other character in the game, it's silly.

c. C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER

Enemies can attack you in the middle of your combo. You'll hit once, twice, then they'll waddle over and slap you for 10 damage, which resets your accuracy, and you'll have to start over from default accuracy. This, coupled with the incorrect hit rate issue and long attack animations, is incredibly frustrating and draws battles out far longer than they need to be.

Solutions:

Fixing problem A is pretty obvious, so I won't get into that. B is a bit trickier. Well, maybe not: I think an easy way to fix it would be to have all characters gain mini-levels, even if they're not in your party. Even the characters who haven't joined you yet. In Chrono Trigger, non-party members leveled up with you, so I don't see why it couldn't be the same here. If anyone has issue with this solution (why you would, I don't know), you could just have it so mini-levels aren't missable, and you can simply grind for them after the fact.

Problem C is also pretty easy to fix, and goes hand-in-hand with fixing the accuracy issue. If your hit rate was actually shown correctly and your combos couldn't be interrupted, the game would be much easier to get into and infinitely less frustrating. Also, the ability to skip any and all attack animations would be amazing; though I know Square wouldn't have done this during the PSX era because they wanted to poke everyone's eye out with their flashy and phallic 3D effects.

You're probably thinking, "this isn't necessary, the game is really easy anyway!" Yeah, it is, but that's no excuse for your mechanics to be broken and your battle system to be unnecessarily long-winded. I do think the game's difficulty could be boosted, though; if you're a reasonably experienced player, the only battles in the entire game that will give you any trouble whatsoever are boss fights with Garai, Miguel, Dario and Criosphinx (the latter two being optional).

What Sucks: Presentation

a. Serge's Heroes


Don't forget to choose the correct dialogue options to recruit more characters who are inconsequential to the plot.
When looking purely at the narrative, plot structure and characterization of it, Chrono Cross is a deeply flawed game. The reason for this is quite simple, and is easily the most common complaint against it: there are far too many characters. Did Turnip really need to be in the game? Really? There's not many games where you could hack off half the cast and have there be no effect on the overall plot. You can't even say that about Suikoden, because a large amount of those characters are clearly defined and have real roles in the large battles -- those that aren't at least provide you with silly mini-games or shops for the castle -- Chrono Cross, quite literally, has anyone who's not in your party sitting on the sidelines waiting to be picked up.

It's also a well-known tidbit that Guile was originally supposed to be Magus. This backstory was cut out of the game due to the difficulty of representing it among so many other characters.

b. You look like a hero, let me fight with you!

To go with this issue, most of the characters in the game join you for the most random, sometimes non-existent reasons (see: Luccia). This is a problem in any game with large amounts of characters, because finding clear and believable motivation to join your group isn't easy when you have to do it so many times.

c. I know we just met, but let's break into a heavily guarded military facility and steal shit! Plus other awkward character interactions

Some of the plot advancements are poorly developed, as well. The headline for this section actually happens in the game: Kid suggests you break into Viper Manor because some of its Acacia Dragoons have been chasing you, and she wants the Frozen Flame (an ancient, powerful artifact). You've been traveling together for maybe a few hours at this point. Of course, you have no choice but to be like, "alright."

There's also several occasions where you'll bring a character into another dimension to see his or her other self, and neither of them are the least bit surprised. "Oh, this is me, from another dimension? Wow. You look just like me. I'm going to go back to idling now, because I'm an NPC."

Issues like this have a tendency to kill the immersion of a game. In fact, through much of the game, it seems like a lot of what you do is based on guesswork and loose ideas. When Serge gets transferred to Lynx's body, you're essentially told that you "may" be able to get his body back if you find the Dragon Tear (another artifact). Instead of asking around some more, you instantly go off and look for it. Of course, that ends up working, and everybody's happy... but, really? Why would you go ahead with that when it's the first thing you hear, and the one who tells you isn't even sure?

d. Guys, what's going on and why is all this water frozen? It's not cold out here.


WHAT DOES LAVOS HAVE TO DO WITH THIS
As previously mentioned, Chrono Cross is a complicated game. It's not so much that the plot is hard to understand, it's that things aren't nearly explained well enough. Why is The Dead Sea frozen? Why is Leene's Bell in the middle of The Tower of Geddon? Why are the ghosts of Crono, Lucca and Marle chastising Serge and why are they all children? That's barely scratching the surface of things that happen in Chrono Cross that go largely unexplained. I don't know if it's too much disc space being wasted on the large amount of character quests or just laziness on behalf of the writers, but this does get annoying if you're the kind of person who has to know every detail of the story. Myself, though I do recognize it as a problem, I actually like the aura of mystery it gives to the game. I like that it doesn't hold your hand through the entire thing, and you never see those cutscenes where they reveal to you exactly what the enemy is plotting. Still, it goes overboard with reading between the lines -- reading a few articles on Chrono Compendium will confirm that to you -- and it borders on pretension, or laziness. Or both.

Solutions: Obviously, cutting a lot of characters out would solve three of these problems, and possibly the fourth. This would allow for more detailed interaction, more build up to plot advancement and less random. Here's a list of all playable characters in the game (from Chrono Compendium), with indicators showing who could be removed, etc.

(Underline=Did not need to join party. Strike=Did not need to be in the game at all.)

# Doc
# Draggy
# Fargo
# Funguy
# Glenn (Central character in the Dario sidequests. Also has a dual tech with Serge [X-Strike])
# Guile (1 of 3 branching path characters early in game; also add his Magus background story)
# Greco
# Grobyc
# Harle (Temporarily)
# Irenes
# Janice
# Karsh
# Kid
# Korcha
# Leah
# Leena
# Luccia
# Lynx (Serge in Lynx's body; temorary)
# Macha
# Marcy
# Mel
# Miki
# Mojo
# NeoFio
# Nikki (See Guile)
# Norris (Lends you his boat; wouldn't make sense if he didn't join you. Also cures Kid if you choose not to save her when she's poisoned)
# Orcha
# Orlha
# Pierre (See Nikki)
# Pip (Unique evolution growth)
# Poshul
# Radius
# Razzly (Choose between Razzly and Glenn in the second branch)
# Riddel (Central character in the Dario sidequests)
# Serge
# Skelly
# Sneff
# Sprigg (Unique Doppelgang abilities)
# Starky (Important for a quest late in the game to get into Terra Tower)
# Steena
# Turnip
# Van
# Viper
# Zappa
# Zoah

Here, we'd have eleven permanent characters (eight recruitable in one playthrough, branching paths and all); much more manageable, and allowing for much, much more backstory. One problem is that the innate colors would be a tad imbalanced; there would be only one red innate (Kid), and the two blue innates are pretty lame and you'd only be able to get one in a playthrough (Nikki, Pierre). There's also three whites, or four, if you count Pip (his innate changes depending on his form). You could add a couple more characters to remedy this, or just change the innate colors around; most of the characters in the game don't have clearly-defined innate colors, anyway. It's a small price to pay for vastly improving the quality of the plot. You could even add a more detailed tech system, more along the lines of Chrono Trigger -- while still retaining the element system, of course -- and add all those double and triple techs we've always wanted.

Now that we've discussed most of the flaws in the game, what about what it gets right? It gets a lot of things right.

What's Good: Gameplay

a. Floating along the arms of trees

Chrono Cross has two points in the story where the path branches, each one leading you into significantly different scenarios. While it doesn't change the outcome of the game much, it does at least give you options, which is more than you can say for most JRPGs. In fact, it's more than you can say about Chrono Trigger -- though it had a lot of sidequests, there was really no point in the game where you could go down an entirely different path, unless you were on a new game+.

b. RUN MOTHERFUCKER RUN

You can flee from any battle in Chrono Cross, at any time, without fail. Even boss fights. You might think it's strange when you're in the middle of an epic fight, and you run away, and the boss is just standing there, waiting for you to re-engage it. The advantage is that if you fail to steal an item (you only get one chance; you can only steal once per fight), you can run away and try again. You can also run away if you're about to die. Why is this a good thing? Because it accomplishes the same thing that reloading or resetting does, without the hassle. It doesn't interrupt the flow of the game. It also allows you to not waste any time on battles that you'll gain nothing from, which you'll run into often with the leveling system that's used here.

c. They see me rollin', they hatin'

As in Chrono Trigger, you can see enemies on the field map. No random battles. Yay.

d. What the hell happened to my magic system?

The element system in Chrono Cross is pretty awesome. It works like this: You have a grid with eight different levels on it, each slot of which can be equipped with an element, which is just a fancy word for "magic spell." To use elements, you have to attack enemies in battle. A weak hit activates one level, medium two, strong three. So, to use a level six element, you'd have to do two strong hits, or three medium hits, etc.

What this does, is it emphasizes the importance of both physical attacks and magic. You want your attacks to hit and do sufficient damage, and you also want strong elements to finish the combo off with. I love this, because in so many games, magic is thrown in without any real thought put into it. They're almost always outshined by physical attacks, usually because of damage caps -- why cast one spell for 9999 when you can do a multi-hit physical attack for 7000 a hit? In Chrono Cross, you use both, and they're both effective. Balance!

e. Exploit weaknesses at your own risk


Lots of blue innate stuff down here, naturally.
The innate system is interesting. Each character has a color assigned to them. Their physical attacks and elemental defenses are based on their innate color.

White <-> Black
Red <-> Blue
Yellow <-> Green

So, red beats blue, but blue also beats red. This makes building parties for boss fights and such a bit more strategic -- you can build a party full of green innates for a yellow boss, but they'll also take much more damage than anyone else. More depth is always welcomed.

f. So I heard you like non-linearity and sidequests

Non-linearity is a dwindling aspect of JRPGs. It just doesn't happen much anymore -- I can only assume it's because gamers love to have their hand held through every second of a game. Chrono Cross has it, though. At any point in the game, you can usually explore one or more areas you don't have to go anywhere near until much later. There's usually treasure and secrets to be had, too. You can recruit Draggy a lot earlier than you think!

There are sidequests, too. Not a ton, but enough -- there could have been more with fewer characters, I'm sure. As they should, they provide the hardest battles in the game... though Criosphinx can be solo'd by Serge with moonglasses, a yellow plate and the Mastermune (he is overpowered as balls, seriously).

g. You got your dimension in my dimension!

The main selling point of Chrono Cross was its use of an alternate dimension in place of Trigger's time periods. I'm not sure if I like it better, but it does provide you with a very interesting perspective of the world with and without Serge (read), and is very telling of the nature of the game's artistic implications, even seeming to give you a look into the personal thoughts of the creators. More on that later, though.

h. THAT WAS FUN CAN WE GO AGAIN

New game+. It needs no introduction, really. Chrono Cross's version features a fast forward function that allows you to speed up gameplay, and like Trigger, you can defeat the final boss at almost any point during a NG+, revealing a whole bunch of alternate endings. Later in the story, with the help of the game's namesake, you can even transfer your character roster over from another save file. Great for those obsessive types.

What's Good: Presentation

Running out of morals for my allegory...

Chrono Cross is a joy to look at and listen to. It's one of the best-looking games on the Playstation, and is one of the finest examples of how pre-rendered backgrounds can make a game look absolutely beautiful. The backgrounds are hand-drawn, bursting with color and detail; I'd go so far as to say that it looks better than most current-gen RPGs. Certainly not from a technical standpoint, but on a purely artistic level, I really believe that.


Not to be outdone, Yasunori Mitsuda's soundtrack is one of the better game soundtracks ever composed. Following the theme of the game, it fits the more mature, dark and mysterious nature of it. There's not many "happy" songs on the OST; most of them convey feelings of melancholy, dread, mystery and sentimentality. The opening sequence perfectly embodies this, throwing a clusterfuck of ethnic instrumentation at the listener following an excerpt from Schala's journal -- which reads almost like a poem. I always found the lines "Yet even then, we ran like the wind/Whilst our laughter echoed/Under cerulean skies..." to be one of the most beautiful things I've ever read in a video game, and it was one of the first things that exposed me to the "art" of them.


The aspect of Chrono Cross that drove me to write all this, though, is all the little things the game references throughout the story that I didn't pick up on the first couple times I played it, years ago. Coming into my replay of it, I wondered a lot about what it was really about. I don't mean the story itself, but rather the statement it was making -- the art of it, if you will. So, I played the game very attentively, and actually picked up on a lot of themes that I never noticed before.

Of course, other games have had subtle messages like that before. What makes Chrono Cross any different from them?

It excels on the strength of its entire presentation. Everything about it: the music, the graphics, the atmosphere, the things its storyline entails; it's all done with such conviction and prowess that it leaves a lasting mark on anyone who delves deep enough into it. Whatever your opinion on the game may be, you can't deny that this is one of the finest atmospheric achievements in a video game, even surpassing Chrono Trigger.

So, what kind of themes are tucked away in the back pocket of Chrono Cross? The most obvious theme is probably one of regret, and "what if." With two dimensions to explore, you meet a lot of the same people twice, and you get to see how their lives are different between them. A proud fisherman in Home World's Arni is a sad, vaguely insane worshipper of a straw voodoo doll (Mojo) in Another World. Fargo is a ruthless pirate captain in Another, and a totally complacent milquetoast who has transformed his ship into one big tourist attraction in Home.



Perhaps the most interesting difference between the two dimensions is that, as far as anyone can tell, El-Nido is actually better off without Serge. Termina is free of Porre's occupation, The Acacia Dragoons are alive and kicking and Marbule isn't a ghost town. It's a departure from other games, in an indirect way -- usually, the main character is heralded as some kind of savior for the world, but in this game, it seems like most of the world would pretty much rather not have him around.

For the more inobvious, Chrono Cross is, mostly, about nihilism. It's evident in the themes presented by some of the characters: Leena talks about the ocean being here before and after her lifetime, as if her life is ultimately inconsequential to nature. Sprigg blatantly states that life is essentially pointless. The whole plot revolves around the idea that the lives of El-Nido's inhabitants -- in both known dimensions -- are at the will of a massive super computer known as FATE.

The overwhelming feeling of helplesness peaks in The Dead Sea, where you really see the effects of tampering with space-time -- the "time crash" which resulted in an entire chunk of existence being thrown thousands of years into the past and then frozen completely. A ruined, futuristic metropolis frozen in time, it's foreboding, surreal, and even a little depressing -- the enemies there range from lifesize mannequins who trudge around like zombies to ghostly beauty pageant contestants who float around in red dresses, destroying your party with high level magic spells after cordially introducing themselves and telling you about their hobbies.

Perhaps it's this kind of creative madness that makes this game so eye-opening when you play it with your full attention, accepting it as an artistic expression of something and not "just a video game." This, actually, is how you should play most games. I can't believe I'm saying this, since anyone who knows me knows that I can't stand games that try to get by on storyline and graphics alone, but I'm really starting to buy into the idea that a game doesn't have to have amazing gameplay to be something worth playing. However, it also has to be something special, artistically. It has to have a sense of purpose to it, like it was something the development team really wanted to make. Had to make, even. If you ever wondered why sequels are almost never as good as originals outside of video games, it's because there's less passion involved in the creation of them. Why it doesn't work that way in video games, is because you can take the framework of a game and make it better pretty easily. If you pay attention to plot and art direction, though -- those almost always get worse, if they're worked on by the same people.

It doesn't always start with the first entry in a series, either. Using Star Ocean as an example, the series' art direction and plot development quite clearly peaked with SO2, and has been going steadily downhill since. The gameplay keeps improving, however, so the series is validated. It's hard to keep creating story elements with the same conviction you once had when you're constantly being asked to write for sequels. Those things take time and thought.

This is also something I've had a lot of discussion with Phil about: there's games that tell good stories, and then there's games that are trying to say something, about life, society, politics or otherwise. Chrono Cross easily fits into the latter. What it's saying is uncertain even to me, but from what I can piece together, I believe it's trying to tell us that no matter what reservations you may have about the nature of your existence -- whether you're a nihilist or a devout Christian -- all you have to do is what makes you happy. That's all you're going to do, regardless of what anyone tells you. I think it's telling us not to worry about it, because everyone is the same in that way, whether anyone else chooses to admit it or not. We are a selfish kind.



That's how I interpret it, anyway. The fact that it made me think that much about it is reason enough for me to have great respect for the game despite its flaws. You might wonder how I can rip so hard on Xenogears and love this game so much, and the answer to that is actually very simple: because Xenogears feels like the emotional downpour manifested of a 16 year old's diary; Chrono Cross feels like the soft utterings of an old ex-poet now-philosopher sitting on a street corner in the middle of the night. I can't describe it in any other way -- if you don't get it, I can only shrug and say "oh well."

I believe this is the closest video games have come to making a true artistic statement. This is where video games should be heading as an artform. The world of gaming needs more of this. JRPGs don't seem to have any creative passion in them anymore. Chrono Cross seems to gives you that; a distorted look into a person's -- or perhaps a collective of people's -- heads. An honest and intellectual one, at that. Sadly, the Japanese are very secretive about their inspirations in that way, so we'll probably never know for sure.

It's pretty sad that they don't make 'em like this anymore. Who knows if they ever will again. If someone does, I hope Chrono Cross is still an example of what to and what not to do when experimenting with an existing franchise. For now, though, it sits as one of the most misunderstood and flawed displays of genius ever put on two CDs.

-Jibril | LJ