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 @_@