So is Final Fantasy XIII-2 unfinished or what?

Ok, I'm annoyed, like majorly so. Warning that this post may contain spoilers for the game. I will point out when they are coming though.

Ok, so I really did try to avoid spoilers about this game. I really did. I know it was released in Japan on the 15th so I tried to be good. But when someone posted the ending on youtube, it was really too hard to resist.

!!!!!!!!!SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Firstly, I'm really annoyed that, as I thought, Noel and Serah are the only playable characters with Lightning appearing for about 10 minutes at the start of the game...What?!?! She's featured in every trailer and clip for this game, but you don't even get to play as her??? Not to mention that this is supposed to be a continuation of Lightning's story....how the heck does that work if she barely features in it?

Also, the ending??? Seriously Squeenix, seriously??? I have the collectors edition of this game on preorder, it's cost me about £50 and it looks like the game isn't even finished. I can accept Serah dying as part of the ending. She's always been a naff character. I wasn't looking for a sugar sweet happy ending, there could have been some drama in there too, but it looks like the game wasn't even finished. So Serah kicks the bucket, then all this chaos explodes around pulse and Valahalla starts to appear while Noel and Hope look on and then............cue the credits. Annoyed does not begin to describe how I feel. I'm so tempted to cancel my preorder.

Now I don't mind a sad ending, I don't mind it at all. But this looks like it's not even finished. It just stops. So then i find out that maybe you need to have all the 160 fragments to get the good ending. Like X-2 had multiple endings, people guessed that this was the same. I watched a live stream of someone with all 160, i watched as he defeated the final boss (which does look insanely awesome, i can't lie there) and i watched the naff ending roll. Then the credits.....and then 30 seconds of Caius sitting in a throne bringing sexy back. So wait, I have to grind like a crazy person for hours to get all those frag's only to then be rewarded with 30 seconds of Caius? No thank you. At least on X-2 for all the rubbish that game was, i was rewarded with Tidus being reunited with Yuna. Give me something here Squeenix, anything...I'm begging you.

!!!!!!!!!!!SPOILERS END!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So then i remember that the game is going to have substantial Downloadable content. But wait, won't I have to pay extra for that? I don't mind throwing out a few extra pounds to get a cool boss fight or maybe a snazzy new costume if I'm in the mood, but to pay extra to get the rest of the game is a ripoff when I'm already paying about £50. And this game, with the ending does have the feel of an unfinished game. I know the buzz of gaming forums ATM is that maybe there's going to be a Final Fantasy XIII-3. Maybe there will be, but I'm still paying here for an unfinished game. I would then need to buy said extra game just to complete the one I've got. Sure from a company point of view it's an awesome idea as people will pay for it, but it also serves to piss your fans off. I mean yeah, if i buy XIII-2 (and that is an IF now) I would buy the extra content, but then I'm not likely to buy any more of your games full stop. I'll wait til they start hitting the second hand market and I can get them for £10 rather than £50. That is if i even want to play them. This whole move is just like the company is knocking the loyalty of it's fans down. All companies need to remember that without your fans you are nothing. Don't treat them like dirt.

So annoyed over this. God, words can't even describe my rage right now. You used to make good games Square Enix, very good games. You really do need to recapture that glory. Like I have mentioned though, the DLC here will mean everything, so a review of the game will come once that has been released.

Seriously, hire me and I'll show you how to write a good story for your games that doesn't annoy the fans like this.

Here's some Hope x Light to make me happier.

Skyrim and.....anone remember versus XIII?

So yeah, I'm now super excited for christmas as I have asked for Skyrim and I really do hope i get it lol. Literally all my friends rave about it so i can't wait to start playing it. Also as I am once again busy in the run up for christmas (work is mental) Here's a little post just to ask....

Anyone remember Versus XIII???? Seriously Squeenix, the game looks awesome but has been in production forever now. I got my PS3 because i heard it was going to be a PS3 exclsuive so where is it??? I really hope it's good though because my expectations of XIII-2 are slowly slipping every day.

I'm back!!!

Yeah so my depression didn't last too long. Still annoyed as hell at uni, but what can you do? So I'm currently full time at my part time job and had been busy arranging Ponycon and attending the London Expo. So October was a pretty busy month for me :)

Anywho, at the Expo I managed to play on Final Fantasy XIII-2 (yes that game that has almost taken over my blog) And here is my review on it thus far.

Firstly it is no secret that I am excited for this game. Gameplay seems pretty close to the original game with the paradigm shifts and job roles. The crystarium is still around too. However a new feature is the introduction of on screen battle prompts to alter the way a battle can be played out. Pretty much a cinematic sequence might occur (mine was in battle with Atlas) and depending on whether or not you hit the right button, the event will alter slightly. At one point i missed it and Noel and Serah got smacked by him, the second time though I nailed it and both managed to avoid the attack. Not going to lie, I'm somewhat looking forward to it :)

However my main gripe comes from the fact that there are only two playable characters??? What??? In a Final Fantasy game I have two playable characters??? I'm not going to lie, I'm slightly confused by that. Rather than having other characters, you use monsters to fight for you. Square Enix, that is possibly the lamest idea ever. This is Final Fantasy, not Pokemon. I don't want to catch them all.

Also, where the heck is Lightning? This whole game has been hyped up about her but she doesn't seem to be playable? Hopefully this isn't right and things will change before the game is released, but it really seems stupid. Why make a sequel if none of the characters from the original are available to play?

Will reserve judgement for now.

Hiatus

So this blog will probably be on Hiatus for a bit. I'm in a pretty bad mood at the moment. Pretty much I was trying to do a masters degree at university this year. Yeah the uni sucked, but the masters degree was to be taught by the only tutor worth listening to and I really wanted to use it as a way of padding out my portfolio. Currently the only thing I can put in it is my Jinxie work. But they've cancelled it. So I had funding and living arrangements all sorted, and they've cancelled it and won't put me on any other course. Seriously, anyone thinking of attending Sheffield Hallam University.....THINK AGAIN!!!!! I don't care how bad your grades are, some where else will take you.

Bubble Bobble

Another review :) Yay, I know how much people like these. This time it's on the classic arcade game, Bubble Bobble.

I really don't know where to start with this game as without a shadow of a doubt, it is one of my favourite games just for how addictive it can be. Many a time I've spent an afternoon pushing myself to get to level 100, which is certainly no mean feat.

The game itself is relatively simple, you play as one of two dinosaurs called Bubble and Bobble (who were actually men who were changed into dinosaurs...originally called Bub and Bob) and you have to get to the last level to rescue your girlfriend who has been kidnapped. It's a simple premise and one that you don't overly care about as you make your way through the endless amount of levels.

The game mechanics are simple yet fun, proving that you don't need to have a whole host of crazy combo's to make a game enjoyable. You capture enemies in bubbles and then pop them to kill them. This then turns the enemies into fruit or other food items which can be collected for points. It's out right addictive lol.

The level designs range from the stupidly simple, to down right impossible, with every level different which is easier said than done when the creators only had a set space and blocks to work with. I will say that some are easier to do when playing the 2 player mode and you can rely on someone else to draw enemy fire while you capture them (seriously, some of those guys throw beer bottles at you lol) There are also pickups that appear at random places wthin levels that can help you out. Some sweets cause your character to blow faster bubbles, get more distance on your bubbles or give you flame breath. Soem of the 'helpful' pickups though are more of a hinderence, for example the speed shoes you can pick up, which do exactly what they say on the tin, actually hinder your ability to jump on bubbles. This ability is a vital skill in some levels, but you're moving so fast that you pop bubbles before you can jump on them.

Then there's the music. I have a love hate relationship with this music. I think it's catchy and when I hear it, I instantly think of awesome times playig this game with my sister for hours on end. But thats the thing.....hours on end....six hours of that tune is enough to drive you crackers lol. You know how some people on youtube make ten hour long videos of a short song repeated over and over again? Well this is like that. The tune lasts for about a minute at best so hours later you're about ready to give up the darn game....either that or put your controller or fist through the screen.



Seriosuly though, this is a fun and addictive game, the likes of which are something of a rarity now, which is a shame. People prefer shiny war games rather than fun addictive simple games.

Ahem....Hope x Lightning

So, following on from my major meltdown the other day, I'm sure you are now aware that Hope is in Final Fantasy XIII-2 and that I sort of ship him and Lightning.

Hope and Lightning are quite possibly two of my favourite video game characters ever, and I don't just mean from the Final Fantasy series. When I started to play Final Fantasy XIII, I hated them both. Lightning was trying to be Cloud which was annoying and Hope was a whiny little brat that I wanted to strangle.

So what made this transgression from hate to love? In a game where character development was pretty poor, both these characters did develop. Hope went from being a little prick, to being the one at the end who stands up to the final boss and urges the other character to do the same. Lightning mellows and develops her own personality. She goes from being a bit of an asshole to being a genuinely caring person. And together they are awesome.

The part of the game when you are playing as just the two of them, was one of my favourite bits. They both started to wear down the defences that the other one had and they seemed to genuinely care for each other. The fact that Lightning hugs him, only ever seems to smile at him strengthens my view that they are indeed in love (or in the stages of falling in love) So to have him in the new game, when he's clearly going to be older (read that as legal lol)I'm really looking forward to it. I can't wait to see how he reacts to Lightning, or how Lightning will react seeing that he's grown up :) Soooooo excited.

This has also given me an idea to do a post about my favourite game couples.....hmmmm or maybe just characters in general.

HOPE'S IN FINAL FANTASY XIII-2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HOPE IS IN FINAL FANTASY XIII-2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MY MIND IS SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW I COULD EXPLODE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AND HE'S OLDER.....BRING ON THE LIGHTNING X HOPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lightning Cosplay

Major lack of updates. Sorry about that guys. Lightning literally ate my life. But yeah, I did it ^_^ Despite having poor ref images, The whole thing fall apart the night before I wore it and then having to hold it all together with nothing more than sellotape on the day, I was Lightning.

I would love to remake the costume again, just because I know that there are so many problems in it's design, but right now I'm just happy I managed to do it. Not just that, but I met up with a friend at mine at the con who had cosplayed Serah which meant I had a little sister for the day :)

Seriously though, the things I do for the characters I love. I put it on at 10am and took it off at about 6pm. In that time I couldn't drink, eat, sit down, run or anything of the sort because I was terrified something would break on it lol. But it didn't, it all held together. That now means I have cosplayed, from Final Fantasy:

*Rydia from FF IV
*Locke from FFVI
*Celes from FFVI
*Vanille from FFXIII
*Lightning from FFXIII-2

And here's a picture of the costume in all it's glory ^_^

Eternal Sonata....A video game about Chopin?

Long time no see. Got a few more shifts at work, not to mention a cosplay to finish so I've been pretty busy. However here's a quick review about a game that is all about the composer Chopin.

That’s right, an RPG based around the life of the composer Chopin. I know right? It sounds a very strange concept and is one that doesn’t entirely work.

While it’d be wrong to criticise the game for wanting to do an RPG based around the composers life, the game that we do have seems to have very little to actually do with Chopin himself. While some of his music makes it into the game and there is obviously a character called Chopin, the game itself doesn’t really go into his life. At the end of each segment, the game is split into eight chapters, there is a brief history lesson given to the player about his life, these parts just seem like they’ve been put in there at the last minute with very little thought about them. Not to mention they’re rather dull when all you want to do is get back to the action.

Anywho, on with the game itself. The one thing I cannot fault about this game is the graphics. They are stunning. The character designs and scenery are simply beautiful to look at. I’m not going to lie, it was the character designs of this game that made me want to play. After looking for a new costume to cosplay I happened upon Princess Serenade’s design and loved the detail on it. However I have a rule not to cosplay a character I don’t know, so I decided to give the game a play. Not a bad reason for wanting to play a game lol. But that is the problem with this game, like so many games recently, it’s beautiful to look at, but there’s not a whole lot going on underneath. And it really pains me to say that because I wanted so much to like this game.

The beauty of the game aside, the story falls between the standard and the, quite honestly, daft. It starts out with a girl, Polka, wanting to find out why a medicine called mineral powder is so cheap whereas her village’s floral powder is so expensive. On the way she meets other characters who become part of the party, including Fredric Chopin. Turns out in our world Chopin is on his death bed and is dreaming of Polka’s world. It’s not a bad start to the game, and is pretty enjoyable. However it quickly turns into your regular run of the mill RPG story line with the leader of the country of Forte wanting to attack some neighbouring country while a group of rebels try to stop them. I know what you’re saying, ‘Final Fantasy VI does that too but you sing it’s praises’. I do because that is a good game. This is mediocre at best. While the main plot of the story is a little weak, the characters themselves, despite looking awesome, have no growth to them. We don’t learn their back stories which is the main problem I have…why is Viola a shepherd in the middle of no where? Where are Allegretto and Beat’s parents? Why can Polka use magic? These questions are just there. I suppose sometimes you don’t want a game to become bogged down in useless story, but in terms of an RPG where the game should be character driven, Eternal Sonata does a pretty poor job. I mean Polka is apparently dying but it’s hardly mentioned while Serenade is apparently a spy but again very little is said on the matter. There are also WTF moments that at the time you think will be expanded on later, but they never are. You see at one point Polka, who has a special stone, throw it away, however just a few moments later Allegretto hands her the exact same stone. Now it wouldn’t mean much, stones are pretty similar, but the creators make it a big point with Polka having a whole little monologue on how could this stone be the same as hers when she just got rid of it. Then comes the ending in which one of our party members turns around and is actually the final boss of the game with no reasoning behind it. I mean what? Someone I’ve freaking levelled up suddenly wants to kill me? The twist to the story would have been epic, but instead its let down as there is absolutely no reason why they would suddenly turn, nor is any given afterwards. Then comes the icing on a really bad cake…

At the start of the game we are witness to Polka falling off a cliff saying she can do it if it’s for the one she loves…that same scene plays again at the end. Apparently she has the power to right the world or some bullshit like that. Seriously it’s something I’d normally eat up, but it’s so poorly explained that I guarantee you will play the last hour of this game with a very perplexed look on your face. Anywho, waffling aside, Polka leaps to her doom and everyone’s sad. Then we are treated to a younger Polka walking with her mother while her mother talks about things that have happened in the game, then before you know it, Polka floats up from the cliff and is reunited with everyone…WTF!!! Seriously if anyone plays the game and actually understands the ending, please dear god let me know what is going on.

That said, the battle system is freaking epic. You can see the enemies as you explore the world, but when you approach them you can trigger a battle which takes place in an enclosed area. Not too different from other RPG’s, however there’s a big deal made about light and dark on the battle area. As you fight, some areas may be in the shade by a nearby object or passing clouds, or maybe a single flames is the only light on the battlefield. Thing is, the enemies can change appearance depending on whether they are in shadow or light . This means a very small enemy you’re fighting could very quickly change into a much harder adversary. Not only that, but your character’s attacks also change depending on where they are standing. It means as a player you have to change strategies constantly as the battle progresses. Plus, at a later point in the game, you start to collect echoes. What this basically means is that the more your characters land hits on the bad guys, the more echoes you gather. The more you get the better the characters special attacks will be should you choose to release them. It sounds complicated but once you’ve played through a battle or two you get the hang of it. Plus they don’t come in at the start of the game which means you have time to adjust to the battle system without an overload of information all at once. A little letdown with the battle is that the enemies start to get reused a lot. I know lots of RPG’s do this, but it’s very noticeable in this game which makes me think they just had a much lower stock of enemy models.

The music in the game is also wonderfully done. I mean for a game based around music, it’d be a huge disappointment if it was lacking in this area. Luckily it totally delivers here with some great tunes. The battle theme is a really good example of this as is the song, Pyroxene of the Heart. I mean honestly, Pyroxene of the Heart is possibly one of my favourite pieces of game music, shortly behind the Opera theme from FF VI.

So all in all, it’s a beautiful looking game, a beautiful sounding game, a beautiful game to play…there’s just no substance tying it all together which is a shame. Like I said earlier, I really, really wanted to like this game, but the story and lack of character development was just too huge of a flaw for me to overlook. I’m not in the camp that favours graphics over substance. It can look as pretty as it likes, but if I don’t connect with the characters I don’t enjoy the game…..Plus there’s a really weird part at the end with a snail and a caterpillar that makes about as much sense as the last third of the game.

Jinxie...All about me ^_^

After my poor attendance on this blog recently, and the fact that I'm getting more and more discouraged about my Lightning Cosplay as my convention draws closer, I thought I'd post about something that makes me happy.

This year was my final year at university. I went to Sheffield Hallam and studied Games Design. I can honestly say I hated it and anyone thinking of studying there, find another university. I could go into the horror of the last three years and how in all honesty, I know about the same as before I went in there and paid my £3000+ a year in tuition fees. But for our final year projects we were given full reign....do whatever we liked. Now in three years they had taught me nothing about modelling in 3D but I love character design and coming up with characters so that is what I chose to do. I would come up with a game concept, draw a whole load of art for it and then try to realise a 3D trailer for the game. It was a LOT of work.

I knew about Maya and 3DS Max but beyond moving balls and blocks round and animating a biped, I didn't know much else. I knew it was goign to be a lot of work, hence why a lot of the posts on this blog while I was still at uni are pretty random with when they were posted as I literally had to learn how to model and animate in about 6 months. That was with other random and totally pointless assignments they gave us just to try and catch us out.

The end result, while not entirely happy with it and even less happy with my mark (I got the same as people that had done less than half the work I had....) I am actually pretty happy with what I managed to learn in that time. Seriously had I known I could learn all that, I'd have not bothered with uni at all.

The whole focus of my idea was on the character below. A young girl called Jinxie.

There wasn't an aspect of the game I didn't think about or go into in my project. From game mechanics and UI designs, to story development and side characters and quests. I covered everything and, also managed to learn how to model, texture and animate.....I was literally so proud of it....I still am in fact, regardless of my mark.

My Birthday :)

Best day ever :) Just because it's my birthday of course lol. No other reason ^_^ But besides that, this is a post to pretty much say I may be MIA over the next few weeks.

Basically Lightning is taking up all of my time.....plus I'm playing a couple of new games so aren't coming online as much ATM. Not to worry though, my convention is in August so once that is out of the way, I shall do some far better reviews and new posts. All that sort of stuff. Plus i realise i haven't actually made a post about my university work.....I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty damn proud of it. So that shall be coming soon...well as soon as i work out how to make armour for my legs work lol.

Cosplay progress

Well Lightning's new costume is certainly proving to be a pain in the backside. Basically I'm making the whole thing from cardboard and papier maches because it's cheap and well, I've just recently finished University with only my part time job to go on. Go me :(

Anywho, this thing is dirivng me nuts. It's not so much the creation, but rather what the bloody thing looks like. I literally have EVERY screenshot of the costume thats been released thus far but god it's hard. I mean the shape of her breastplate and shoulder plates are driving me nuts. Especially the shoulders, they look different in EVERY shot.

I will get it done for Ayacon though. Come hell or high water.

In the meantime here's a shot of her shield to go on. This is how far I am on that. The designs on the front were pretty much guessed at from what I can see of it in various shots. I'm pretty pleased with it though :)

A facebook game that works.....Pet Society

Ah, after the bad review of Ocean Party (my first negative review lol) I’ve decided to go for a game on Facebook that I like. Pet Society.

Created by Playfish, it’s essentially a digital pet game. You create your little critter and then visit shops, friends and collect gold to buy nice clothes and items for your pets house. It’s simple, cute and addictive. While there are a lot of games on Facebook like this, Pet Society has been around for a few years now and has some of the nicer designs for your pet. There’s almost an anime feel to some of them which of course means big eyes and cute colours.

Every week brings a new theme to the game meaning there are items to collect and buy, some being limited edition for that week. While the themes themselves vary greatly, generally there’ll be some item in any theme that will interest you. Recently too, the game has started to bring in themes from pop culture such as Disney themes, themes from history and right now Harry Potter themes.

One downside of the new themes, and this is coming from someone who’s been playing this game for about two years now, is that with the introduction of playfish cash (in other words real money to buy pixel items) you’ll find that a lot of the better items tend to be PFC while the standard in game gold gets basic stuff. If you want your pet to actually dress as Harry, Voldemort or Snape, you’ll need to fork over real money, other wise just be content with generic stuff. I mean it’s probably a nice cash cow for the creators, but as a regular player, sometimes you just want a cool item you can afford lol.

The game also has little in game challenges such as trying to collect a full set of items to receive a prize. Visiting friends will sometimes reveal a hidden character called Hideeni who, if clicked, posts a message to your friends walls to allow them to click a link to gain a prize. If you collect all of his items you get an exclusive costume or item. Luckily I have more friends playing Pet Society than Ocean Party which makes this a little easier. But even if you lack active friends, you can always visit the trading forum to find items you may have missed out on. The current currency over there is 999’s (items that sell for 999 gold coins) or 5999’s, a royal carriage that seems to be the done thing for the more expensive items. Plus, while trading on online games is never totally safe, the users at the forum are pretty good at updating their safe trader list and black list to ensure even newbies can trade with relative safety.

Ocean Party.....Really isn't a party.

I feel a slight deviation is needed from my love of Final Fantasy and here it is. Ocean Party. I’m going to assume that no one has ever heard of this game and believe me that is probably a good thing.

Ocean party is one of the hundreds of games available on Facebook whereby you create your own little aquarium, fill it with fish and then level up by how many fish you sell. Yeah I know, there’s a dozen of these games out there. However I chose to play this little waste of time as it was created by the people over at Gaia Online, a website I do spend quite a bit of time at.

Initially it had a lot going for it. You played the game on Facebook and you could then transfer your experience points gained in the game for cash over on the main Gaia website. It was a pretty solid concept as after all, it was a pretty cute game and meant I could gain gold on Gaia easier than playing Booty grab for hours on end.

But that’s where the praise ends as Gaia withdrew that little hook and left Ocean party as a stand alone game. And that’s pretty much where Ocean party ends. All the time I’ve been playing the game, it has never had any new content added and the ease by which you level up is only made easy if you have friends that play it too. No friends playing it, you get ten fish at anyone time. And believe me, it takes a long time to get to level 50 with just ten fish.

But that is another flaw in the game, you get to level 50and then what? Nothing. Game over. Find another little cheap game to amuse you for ten minutes every day because you can’t actually progress past 50. Not that I’m sure you’d want to because at Level 40, I’ve lost complete interest in it.

I mean don’t get me wrong, it’s cute and I love cute things. The designs of the fish are nice and different from other aquarium games and you can tell straight away its based on Gaia Online, but it’s so monotonous. It’s a case of put new fish in tank, feed fish, sell fish, every three days or so. It’s boring. There is a mini game called Scrubbles that you can play, but that lasts for 30 seconds if you’re lucky and again can only be played once for every friend you’ve got hat plays the game. Only got three friends playing? Enjoy playing it for 1.30 minutes because that’s all you’ll get.

Not to mention the game is buggy as hell. So often it’ll tell me I have a full tank with only 6 fish actually in it. Or you’ll try and buy new fish only to find you can’t actually click on the fish in the shop. The answer? Load the game back up. I’m sorry but my computer is not fast at the best of times. I’m not reloading it every time something goes wrong otherwise I’d be at it all day.

Seriously, avoid playing this one. It’s just dull and boring with much better alternatives out there if raising digital fish is your calling.

More Final Fantasy XIII-2

Well there isn't really anything new to comment on at this point, however I thought I would come on here and simply mention that I'm cosplaying as Lightning this summer. That's right, I am taking Square Enix's favourite heroine and cosplaying her in her snazzy new costume. I mean I LOVE Lightning in Final Fantasy XIII, she's such a cool character, but her costume was over cosplayed before the game even came out and it's not even that awesome a costume. Vanille and Fang have far more interesting costumes despite being boring characters. Well ok, Fang's pretty cool.....Vanille's the worst game character ever created.

Anywho, back to Lightning, I have literally fallen in love with her new costume. It's freaking awesome. So yes, I shall be cosplaying as her. I shall hopefully be the first person in the UK to do so :) My main issue now is that Square Enix aren't exactly sharing the pics of her, so I'm working on what I've got at the moment and taking it from there.

Hopefully it shall look epic :)



And wow.....Thats a whole lot of thigh on show there @_@

The BEST game ever!!!

And no that title is no exaggeration. My next review I feel should be on Final Fantasy VI. I realise my blog has pretty much become a place for reviews on Final Fantasy but I promise my next review won’t be on the FF series. Cross my heart promise ^_^.
If you’ve read my earlier review on Final Fantasy I you will by now understand that I somewhat like the series…..in fact I somewhat like it a lot. Now if there has ever been a game people should play, it’s this one.

Of recent years it seems Final Fantasy VI has sort of become a missing game. People rave about it’s successor VII and III and IV have had remakes onto the DS, but so few people have played this game. As a die hard VII lover, this beats VII hands down. Yes we all know Sephiroth of VII is a brill bad guy, but Kefka in VI does what not even Sephiroth can achieve….but I’ll come to that later.

VI starts off very simply showing a young girl and two soldiers attacking a mining town in these small mecha suits. The girl ends up in a mine and is rescued by our hero Locke. As is pretty standard fare in RPG’s in general, the girl has no idea who she is other than her name is Terra. It quickly becomes to the attention of the player that there is a large empire in this world seeking to take it all over, Locke just happens to be working for a group called the Returners who are fighting against the empire. So let me get this straight so far:

*Girl with no memory
*Hero working for underground rebels
*Empire seeking to take over the world

At this point it’s all very standard stuff. But then the story seems to just take over and it’s the characters that make this game something completely different.

For a start there are 14 playable characters, the most of any of the games in the main numbered series. And, eventually, all of these can be accessible at once, meaning you can mix and match your party as you wish. Now, 14 characters is a lot for any story, be it in a book, movie or game. I mean look at the car crash movie that is love actually, does anyone actually remember any of the characters stories from that movie other than Hugh Grant was supposedly the PM? No you don’t, and why? Because there’s so many characters in it, you don’t get any time to bond with them as individuals. Does that happen in VI? You can bet your life it doesn’t! Every single character has a fully developed personality, back story and progresses through out the game. Some characters such as Locke, Terra, Edgar and Celes have slightly more developed stories than say Gogo or Strago, but by the end of the game you know exactly why the characters are doing what they are doing. As a testament to how great the character development is, I can still name every single character in your party and tell you details about each one, and I promise you, you will too once you’ve played it. When you compare it to the later game of XII where you only really have 6 characters in the game but don’t really care about any because none of them grow or change or really do a whole lot besides running round the world map, VI does everything correctly.
The story is a very familiar one as I have already mentioned with Terra eventually finding out she’s half human and half esper (the summons of this game…and yes VII fans Terra was the magical girl before Aeris was even thought of) and the Empire trying to control magic in the world…a power that the majority of your characters can’t use until a later point in the game meaning you have to plan your party on what strategy’s your employing to progress in the game. But it dos have some really good twists in it, such as bad guys swapping sides and double crosses, while Kefka actually does what other villains fail to do, and takes over the world. Pinky and the Brain eat your hearts out.

The game also has a quite unique idea whereby at times, the large party splits up and you will play several short story sections with only a few characters. This happens early on when Locke steals into a town, Terra and a few other characters are protecting an old man and some of the other characters board a ghost train…yes you heard that correctly, a ghost train.

The game has some wonderful scenes in it, from the aforementioned ghost train scenario to, what is arguably, the best scene out of any Final Fantasy game, the opera scene. There are a million and one reasons why I love this scene so much. For starters the music in it is wonderful. The tune is simply beautiful. But also the character interaction here is really nice. We start to see the blossoming love between Locke and, up till this point, the quite cold hearted Celes. The graphics themselves are none too shabby either, really making full use of the technology available at the time of it’s release. It’s just a very captivating moment.

Which brings me onto the music, the Opera theme, as already mentioned, is simply a delight to listen to, but so is a lot of the music in the game. It’s all done to a lovely high standard with Nobuo Uematsu really out doing himself on them. I’m sure that any VII fans listening to the Opera theme will notice a strong resemblance to a certain tune played as a certain character meets their demise in VII. Not that I’m saying anything of course….but VI came first ^_~

The battle system is pretty standard, working on the ATB system with individual characters having their own unique attacks and abilities such as having Locke being able to steal while Terra can turn into her Esper form.

As already mentioned, the magic is something that originally only two characters can learn. However all characters can learn it eventually by equipping them with magicite and then levelling them up. Depending on what type of magicite they’re equipped with, characters will learn spells and gain statistical bonuses. These spells are learnt through the aquistion of Magic Acquisition Points accrued from most battles.

Despite the battle system being pretty simple and the story initially seeming a little over done, Final Fantasy Vi saves itself with a top class cast of characters and a world that literally sucks you in. As I played through later games, I continually see characters and events that are reminiscent of those from VI, a testament to how good the game actually is as it’s legacy lives on.

Plus once you’ve completed the game, you’re treated to a lovely little CG FMV that recaps over key points in the game. Seriously, after playing through the game for about 60 hours, getting to see my fave characters in CG like this really makes your day. The only downside is that our wonderful hero, Locke is somewhat absent from this….oh and Terra’s gone blonde, but other than that it really is a nice touch and a great treat once you have finished.

Another Final Fantasy XIII-2 Update

What can I say? I'm officially excited over this. My life has suddenly become this epic quest to try and find out as much info about this game as I can. So now I present to you the latest teaser of the new game:



And here are my initial thoughts.

• Noel is Hope
• Serah's new outfit looks good
• Battle system looks the same - this is good, I liked the old one
• Old characters that return for deffo are Snow's little team buddies
• A new character with a moogle appears though i'm not sure whether it's male or female - I said it looks like a girl, my sister countered with when does that make a different in FF - She said it's wearing a tie, I countered saying the boys practically wear skirts.
• Noel is Hope
• Chocobo's return - always good
• Minions join your team at some point in the way of Gran Pulse something or other
• Noel is Hope
• Serah has a sword and not some wimpy staff
• And did I mention I believe Noel is Hope??? Seriously, he has grey hair that is styled exactly like Hope's....it better be him because then it means Hope is in this game ^_^
  

Final Fantasy XIII-2

So the blog is still alive, despite my obvious absence of late. University is to blame as my final year project damn near killed me. But it’s done now and I can continue with this ^_^

Anywho, today won’t be a review, rather news on the gaming world. I’m sure by now it’s rather obvious that I am in fact a rather big fan of the Final Fantasy franchise. I love it ^_^ And, despite it’s flaws, XIII was a pretty decent game. So imagine my excitement when I discover that they’re making a Final Fantasy XIII-2. Ecstatic doesn’t quite cover it.

So this trailer has been around on the net for a couple of months now and I have to say that Lightning looks pretty kick ass in her new costume:



But today, with E3 just around the corner, I found out some new info and had to share it ^_^ Square Enix have released something akin to the plot of the game with this little extract from their site:

‘Set a few years after Lightning and the others saved Cocoon, some survivors have decided to start over by rebuilding on Gran Pulse. Lightning, however, is nowhere to be found and thought dead by many, but Serah believes otherwise. When her town is suddenly overrun by monsters, a mysterious man named Noel appears to save her. Together, the two set off to find Lightning…’

Can’t say I’m over the moon at hearing that whiny little Serah is now a main character. But I’m hoping they make her to be slightly tougher and lose her annoyingness that drove me mad in the first game. Seriously, she was possibly my least liked character in that game. However I have found some screenshots lurking around the internet and it appears the whiny little madam is actually going to be able to fight, that’s always a plus ^_^

So this Noel guy looks interesting to say the least. He sort of looks like a male Fang if you check out his clothes closely. Yet he’s not the mysterious guy fighting Lightning in the original trailer so it looks like we’ll have a couple of new characters added to the mix. But all I can say is that as long as Hope features and gets with Lightning, I will be one happy fan girl.





Pictures are taken from The Escapist Magazine website.

Pixel Princess will do it’s utmost to keep you up-to-date with info as it’s announced at E3 next week. I have my fingers crossed that this game is going to be good ^_^

The ultimate RPG game series...Final Fantasy

Another missing few blog posts, but blame uni this time lol. It’s sucking the very creative life blood out of me. However, we shall not get into that here, I have another outlet for venting that rage lol. Anywho, I have been privy to some rather awesome news. News that Final Fantasy XIII is getting a sequel. I know, you’re probably wondering why I’m so excited about that having not yet done a review on an FF game, but that is because the sheer time I would need to do a review on an FF game is never around when I need it. In short I love them. I never have to think twice if someone asks me my favourite series, although my favourite of the games is slightly harder. It was this series that made me want to go into games design in the first place. As someone who also has keen interests in being an author (what’s a life without dreams right?) I found that Final Fantasy games satisfied my need to smash some bad guys and to be drawn into a compelling story.

So lets start. Where? Right at the beginning of course. Unlike many gamers who have played the series, I have played not only every game in the series (bar 9 and 11 but I’ll get to that) But I have also done it in order (except for 3 because that came out after 12.…go figure) Yes I’m just that hard core. See it all started back in 2003 at college (I was 16 for any Americans out there….I realise the school system is different in different countries) and doing an Art AS level. A girl on my course happened to show me screen shots of a game she thought I’d like…..a game called Final Fantasy X. I know now that the screen shots she showed me were of Yuna performing the Sending. But at the time I was completely bowled over by the beauty of them. It amazed me that people could create graphics that looked so real. So I set out to play this amazing game. I raved about the pictures to my sister and we hunted them down on the net at home, finally finding out that there were so many games in this series.

Then I had a stroke of luck. See while the world had moved onto the PS2, I was still loving my PS1. But of course FFX is a PS2 game. Never fear, I found a game in Woolworths called Final Fantasy Origins. I have to say I was impressed with my stroke of luck when I saw that both Final Fantasy I and II were available on it. So excited in fact that I bought it on my way up to college one Friday morning and was practically bubbling over with excitement by the time I got to my English class and showed it to my friends who were less than impressed. I feel that they felt that £20 for one game (although I did correct them that it was in fact two) seemed rather pricey and they failed to see any appeal.

I was undeterred and it was the first thing I did when I got home that evening to put it in my PS1 with my sister watching eagerly. I don’t know if you’ve played the PS1 version of FFI but there’s a lovely scene at the beginning of a light warrior fighting a large dragon with the iconic crystal theme playing. I was spellbound…so was my sister. Then the graphics turned into tiny little pixel people and we sat there having a WTF moment. But this was part of the series that had those beautiful pictures I’d seen.

Luckily for me, and my whole foray into games design many years later, I decided to persevere believing that the pretty graphics would come later. Of course they didn’t and I played through a game controlling a little party of people walking round tiny towns and villages. By the end I didn’t care. I was amazed at what could come out of a game.

I realise that nothing above is really a review, but it was necessary to show the sheer enthusiasm I have for these games. Up till then I had played several games, mainly around platformers, racing games or puzzle games. They were fun and at times could last a few hours, but this took me a few days to complete.

Yes, for those of you playing it who are used to the scenery of XII or XIII you’ll wonder what the heck you’re doing with these tiny little graphics and a very simple storyline, but this was the first. A small scale JRPG and it boasts so much charm that by the end you’ll love it.

As with most early FF’s you control a party that you can actually set up choosing from the job classes of hero, thief, red mage, white mage, black mage and monk. There may be another but I’m working from the top of my head here, so we’ll roll with it. You pick your guys and arrive in a small little pixel village called Cornelia. It’s a pretty little place that is in disarray since a guy called Garland ran off with the princess. It so happens that your little party has with them some crystal shards to the king asks you for help.

Now the battle system of FFI is simple. Very simple. You kill bad guys that you find outside of towns, these give you exp points which add up your levels. They also drop gil (the money system) and items. Compared to the crystarium of XIII it’s simple. Which is good, because you want to get into the game. It doesn’t have the pretty graphics that modern day gamers are used to so the last thing you’d want is to spend an hour trying how to understand how to kill your first real challenge while using the paradigm shift (another XIII reference…I’ll stop now)
So back to my first game, I got to Garlands castle, kicked his butt and saved the princess. I had finished the game and actually quite enjoyed it. My party returned to Cornelia for some reward from the king, only to find that our crystals can save the world and the king had kindly made a bridge for us to pass onto the other continent so we can fulfil our destiny. Suddenly the game opened up and any doubts me and my sister had, vanished as we tried to make our way through dungeons and other villages.

Now one flaw I will give this game is that for a first walkthrough, there is a real stubborn part several hours after leaving Cornelia where, you’re pretty much stuck in Cornelia’s bay unless you get someone to blow a hole in the land and let your boat pass through. This is where we discovered the wonders of walkthroughs because it totally flummoxed us as no character save like one mentions it and we spent a good few hours trying to work out what the heck these little people actually expected of us. Some of the battles could also be quite sporadic which meant that there were times that you’d be looking for a fight to level up.

We didn’t care about those flaws though. We were the light warriors out to save the world from the four elemental fiends and dammit we were going to do it well. And I guess that’s the major plus point of this game. The story was so gripping. You wanted to help these people and the more you played the more you became part of the story, which is what I suppose a good RPG should do. Naturally there wasn’t really any character development as the heroes were just cookie cutter good guys and in future reviews of later games in this series, that’ll be a real sore point of mine, but in this game it worked. It was simple but effective. It told a story and it told it well. The depth it went into with the different races living in this world and the four fiends and how they tied into everything was wonderfully done for a game of it’s time. I mean it was originally released in 1987.…that’s just a year after I was born, so needless to say that computer power wasn’t all that great back then.

Would I recommend it??? Hell yeah. I feel that a lot of people are really missing out by not playing these early FF games. I know people who talk about how much they love the series but have only played from VII onwards. That’s 6 awesome games you’re missing out on. Especially now with the release of Dissidia on the PSP that uses characters from older games, people are assuming they know about their characters when they don’t…come on guys, you don’t know their characters till you’ve spent several hours of them in their own world.

So yeah, in short, play Final Fantasy ^_^ If you don’t like the original, let me know, I look forward to correcting you lol.