Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions (PSP)

Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions
TOSE/Square-Enix

Reviewed by Lauren

Back we go to early 1998: In the wake of the massive Final Fantasy 7, another unique little Final Fantasy was released. I say "little" only because it received less hype and advertising, but FFT was truly a huge game in itself. Those who had never played something similar, such as Tactics Ogre, found themselves frustrated by and completely addicted to the strategic gameplay of the aptly-named Final Fantasy Tactics. And now, the game can be enjoyed (or yelled/cheered at) on a portable system. This PSP port did not change much in terms of graphics, music, or gameplay, but the translation received a much-needed overhaul, cutscenes were added, and new quests and play modes were introduced.

The major changes are mostly in translations. Some of them were helpful, and almost necessary. The original FFT was notorious for its poor translation, especially where it counted most - the tutorials. Everything has been clarified in this translation, and it's certainly welcome. Unfortunately, other script changes were simply unnecessary. Izlude is now Isilud, Olan is Orran, Orlandu is Orlandeau, Sweegy Woods became "Siedge Weald," and so on. Not every made-up word had to be changed into another made-up word. And although I can understand Square wanting consistency, I didn't see the need in changing abilities in War of the Lions to match those found in the FFTA games. Of course, this won't be a big problem for most players - only picky FFT veterans like myself.

Multiple cutscenes have been added throughout the storyline. They are also a welcome addition, enhancing the emotion of important plot scenes with gorgeous animation. The scenes have a soft, sketchy style unlike any I've seen before. Kudos to Square for doing something genuinely unique here. The in-game graphics remain mostly unchanged, though they did seem a bit brighter and sharper on the PSP screen.

The music of FFT also remains unchanged aside from some recycled tunes for the new cutscenes. The soundtrack is still quite catchy and appropriate to the atmosphere of the game. The sound effects are also unchanged, and unfortunately, they're starting to show their age. It's no big deal to fans of the original, but new players will probably find them a little too simple for modern gaming. The voice acting, however, is incredibly well done. There is a lot of emotion in the cutscenes, and we have the voice actors to thank for that effect. The accents were especially pleasant and appropriate to the time period.

Speaking of accents, the text of the story itself was also overhauled completely. While it's generally also appropriate to the time period and atmosphere of the game, a few lines seemed like just a little bit too much. It generally isn't enough to detract from the story scenes, though. The new dialogue also made room for some in-jokes - I was particularly amused by a "spoony bard" reference. It was almost disappointing to see that the dialogue was fixed for the job reports at taverns, as classic FFT fans will recall their amusingly bad translations. Still, as nice as nostalgia is, things like this and the tutorial simply needed to be re-translated for the sake of clarity.

The story of FFT is still an excellent one. A few other games have tried to emulate the "political backstabbing tactical RPG" idea since the original FFT's time, but none have held my interest as well as this one did. The main characters are compelling, and the many twists keep the story interesting, even for those who have seen it all before. The new translation also makes the tale seem more authentic for its time period.

One of the best parts of Tactics is that you can play it over and over again and do something completely different every time. Try two Dancers to really mess with a field of enemies. How about a Calculator/Arithmetician? Go for a Mime, or try out the new Dark Knight class. There are many job classes in FFT, and unlike in certain sequels, most are fairly unique. Two new job classes have also been added, and both are quite unique additions. But the best part is that, no matter how many times you play it through, trying these different combinations and strategies is always fun and satisfying. This is what I felt was lacking in some more recent tactical RPGs - the satisfaction of building a unique, strategic party that fits your playing style. FFT still has that in spades. It's truly a joy to build your party and reap the benefits. And you can easily spend 100 hours doing so, then exploring the extra content. This version added several new sidequests that are generally fairly rewarding and even add some decent plot while they're at it.

As I mentioned, the gameplay is very satisfying. Time and efforts match up well with their corresponding rewards. If you don't do any extra levelling, you'll get pummelled in story battles. Or if you level absurdly high like I did this time around, you'll wallop even the most notoriously evil bosses without even trying. Monsters are scaled up in difficulty depending on your level, so random battles will always keep you on your toes. The gameplay is very deep with all of the unique job classes and extra content. It's genuinely fun to come up with crafty strategies in FFT, and the satisfaction comes in seeing it all come together.

One unfortunate flaw in this port is the slowdown. Spells and abilities tend to make the animation go in slow-motion, which was not an issue in the original game. You'll probably notice it right away, then become numb to it after several hours.

Since the translation errors have been fixed, only a few complaints remain with regard to the game itself. It is still unfortunately fairly slow for a modern tactical RPG, which could be a bit of a problem for an average gamer. (Ironically, though, it's faster than FFTA2.) It's also a very menu-heavy game, which can certainly get confusing for someone who hasn't played it before, and who hasn't had the patience to go through the massive tutorial. That said, at least the tutorial makes sense this time around. Sorry, Daravon.

Another issue remains from the original - you can choose to Move and to Act in a turn, but you cannot "back up" after picking which square to move a character to. It would certainly be nice to be able to move first and then test out the range on abilities, but the old-school gameplay offers no such option. Those who are used to the original game probably won't mind unless they've been spoiled by newer tactical RPGs, but it still impacts the strategy element a bit.

It was refreshing to play this after FFTA and FFTA2, because the damage estimates and hit percentages are accurate again. Pretty much spot-on. You'll encounter the occasional one that's slightly off (usually just Rock Throw), but it's generally very reliable, and that's obviously important for a strategy-based game.

Final Fantasy Tactics is a game I will never get tired of playing. There is so much you can do with it, and it's all very entertaining. If you don't take it seriously enough, it'll certainly kick your behind, but finding a strategy to kick the behinds of those who did the same to you is where the fun of FFT lies. Despite a few dated aspects, Final Fantasy Tactics withstands the test of time as a genuinely fun, deep strategy RPG.

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (PSP)

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII

Square-Enix

Review by Lauren

Crisis Core, I don't know what to think of you. On the one hand, you had beautiful graphics, good music, impressive voicework, and a unique, fast-paced battle system. The parts of the plot that tied into Final Fantasy 7 were very well done, too. However, I can't seem to get past the superfluous "original" parts of the story that received much more development. While impossible bullet-dodging and backflips are entertaining to watch the first time around, Square apparently needs to be reminded that The Matrix was released ten years ago, and they've already emulated it enough in Advent Children, Dirge of Cerberus, and their Final Fantasy Versus XIII preview.

The graphics are absolutely stunning - probably the best I've yet seen on a portable system. Square-Enix definitely deserves praise for their technical skills in this department. The cutscenes are incredible CG that look like they came straight out of FF: Advent Children. Even summon spells are done in full CG, which are beautiful (yet thankfully skippable). The in-game graphics are also very nice, with detailed, well-animated character models and facial expressions. The borderlines do get a little bit jagged at times, but it's hardly noticeable.

The music is generally nice, with a good mix of Final Fantasy 7 remixes and original tracks. The remixes are well-done and are sure to bring back memories to any FF7 fan. The original music is decent, with a few especially catchy tunes, but the rest tends to simply serve as not-so-memorable ambience. Voice acting is good for the most part, especially for our protagonist, who sounds very much like a believable character.

Battles play out in a more action-RPG style than what we saw in FF7. The player can move Zack around while choosing to attack, cast magic, or use items. Dodging and defending is also possible with the press of a button. There is, however, a brief delay before a selected action actually occurs. This makes the action style a little closer to turn-based gameplay, since you can't simply button mash your way to victory. (You just button-mash a little more slowly.)

The delay can be a bit frustrating against some bosses. In these cases, the boss is capable of reducing the player's HP to a dangerously low amount with a special ability that freezes all action temporarily. If the player has selected an offensive action immediately prior to this ability, Zack will not execute it until after the enemy's long attack. Ideally, the first thing you'd want to do following the enemy attack is cast Cure or use a Potion, but this painful delay can often mean death as you helplessly mash away at Cure and watch as Zack pauses, slowly attacks, then pauses again before trying to heal. Unless you're lucky or manage to get out of range during this time, it can mean a very fast Game Over.

Thankfully, Phoenix Downs are fairly plentiful (if used only in emergencies), and function in the same way that they did in Dirge of Cerberus - basically a free Raise if you die. Aside from the timing issue of boss special attacks, the difficulty is pretty low throughout Crisis Core. Even only doing a fraction of the optional missions will still have you sufficiently levelled and outfitted to take on the toughest plot bosses in the game. In fact, there is a lot of easy repetition in later battles as well. One boss fight was seriously nothing but a volleying of firaga (enemy) - thundaga (me) - firaga - thundaga - firaga - thundaga until he died. Anthony gave me a strange look when he heard "bzzt, bzzt, bzzt, bzzt" as I fought the time-consuming big version of the final boss, because it was nothing more than spamming the same attack over and over again. The strategy does not go very deep here. Same goes for the enemies - they'll sometimes do nothing but spam an ability over and over again (like Cure).

The battles are not quite random encounters - there are established "hot spots" on each map in which encounters will always occur. This can be nice if you really, really want to level up, but it's a major frustration when you're trying to accomplish anything else. You can sometimes squeeze your way along a wall to avoid these encounters, but not reliably enough. The main annoyance is that if you step just barely out of the border of a completed encounter and then step back, even immediately, you face the encounter again. This will happen a lot when you're grabbing a treasure chest from a room and turning back the way you came. You can "run" from battles, but you'll usually take a good beating in the process.

Zack learns abilities and magic from Materia, much like in FF7. He is given a certain amount of slots for equipping materia, which can give him abilities like Cure, Thunder, Esuna, HP Plus, Attack Plus, and so on. The yellow Command materia also makes a return, and gives Zack special physical attacks at the cost of AP (which functions in the same way as MP for green Magic materia). Keeping materia equipped in battles will eventually level them up and increase their strength. Materia Fusion also becomes available later in the game, and this allows you to add bonus effects to the materia of your choice.

There is another important and unique element to the gameplay in Crisis Core - the DMW (Digital Mind Wave) reel. The reel is a complex design that most players won't fully understand within the span of their playthrough, but all you really need to know is that it's basically a slot machine that determines both your limit breaks and level-ups. It spins constantly while you're in battle and activates (seemingly?) randomly. Sometimes it activates a special ability, sometimes it levels your materia up, sometimes it buffs you up, and at other times, it causes your character to level up. It can also push your HP, MP, and AP past its max, which can be very useful. I've heard that there's an invisible experience system of sorts, but I never saw anything resembling a pattern. This was especially apparent after resetting and fighting the same few battles over again. You might level up twice in the same battle or go two full dungeons with nothing. It's unique, but leaving levelling up to what seems like luck is something I did not particularly enjoy.

As the reel rolls, images of characters appear and line up like a slot machine. These seem to tie in with Zack's memories of said characters, and each can bestow him with a different special attack. Sometimes, however, you'll be treated to a flashback scene as a result of this. This becomes very distracting and convoluted in the midst of battle. Between the random reel rolls, waiting for images to line up (or not), watching big long attacks occur as a result, and/or watching full scenes of characters talking, I found myself very detached from the battles, often waiting for an opportunity to finally hit a button again.

A multitude of mini-games are available throughout the course of the game - some are optional, while some are not. They help to mix up the potentially tedious wandering and battling, and there are many good rewards to be found within them. Unfortunately, however, they tend to be fairly simplistic for the most part, and their charm won't last too long. One mandatory mini-game involves MGS-like stealth, but it's very poorly designed and marked the beginning of the major annoyances in Crisis Core.

A plot-only playthrough will last a player about 15-20 hours, which isn't terrible for a portable action RPG. If the player chooses to tackle each and every mission Crisis Core has to offer, however, another 20-30 hours can easily be added to that number. While this makes for a very long playthrough, most players probably wouldn't want to bother, since the missions tend to get very repetitive. The limited number of maps makes the missions incredibly uninteresting. They're quick and generally easy, though, so at least they're pick-up-and-play friendly. You can also accept them at any save point, which provides a nice level-up option if you happen to get stuck on a boss. Beating all of the missions will unlock a special boss battle, so the completionists have something to aim for. It is also possible to replay the game after beating it while keeping your high level and such, but there are no changes to the game beyond that.

Remember how I said that Zack's voicework makes him sound like a real character? Ah, if only the plot scenes served the same purpose. Yet again, Square-Enix went a little overboard with the Matrix-like absurdities in Crisis Core. It got to the point of being distracting and actually made me less attached to Zack, who seemed less and less like a real person with every ridiculous flip and impossible bullet-dodge. Really now, talking on a cell phone nonchalantly while dodging several streams of focused machine gun fire? Cutting bombshells in half at close range and being unharmed? I know they want to make every hero a badass, but it just got silly here. Only much later in the game did Zack finally become more vulnerable and therefore believable, and only then did I start actually caring about the hero as a character. I'd rather have a realistic protagonist than gravity defiance and backflips, but that's just me. I'll admit that the theatrics were pretty to simply observe, at least.

But the real problem for me with the plot is just how much original content was stuffed into it. It became so much about the new super-badass-winged characters that I barely felt the stories were connected. There were only a handful of scenes that truly felt relevant to the Cloud/Zack/Aerith/Sephiroth story. Granted, I understand that they needed to fill up an entire game with plot when Zack's story was already mostly established in FF7. The extra content still felt excessive, though, to the point of choking out the FF7 story, and even messing with it unnecessarily. Remember the classic Nibelheim flashback with Sephiroth losing his mind in the reactor? The cheesy-factor went through the roof when they inserted an effeminate winged villain to basically say, "Yes, Sephiroth, it was Hojo who did this! Mwahaha." The scene absolutely did not need a comic-book villain thrown into it when it was already presented in full perfectly well in FF7.

There were many details thrown in for the sake of the fans, and I really appreciated that. I'm talking about things like Zack's materia dance, famililar locations redone in 3D, and even crossover references like a "Mt. Koltz" sign on a shop. Seeing those things made me smile. I played the original numerous times, so seeing the old locations/scenes done graphical justice was wonderful. On the other hand, they started to overdo the references when it came to Zack's actions affecting a multitude of small things in FF7, to the point where it got a lot less believable.

I won't spoil anything, but the final hour of the game was hard for me to judge. On the one hand, part of it was beautifully done and finally truly tied into Final Fantasy 7, as it should have. But unfortunately, they took so long to wrap up the "original character" fluff that it made the actual ending feel rushed and hardly important in comparison. The pacing could have been greatly improved, and the original content needed to be cut down. The new (read: irrelevant) plot amounted to little more than extra villains with very generic agendas and motivations. The parts of the plot that actually tied in, and that they didn't toy with, however, were excellent. It's truly a shame that they were so few and far between.

FF7 fans, you will probably enjoy this game. Still, the hardcore fans may be offended by the liberties taken by the writers. Action RPG fans, it's a fun little romp that might bore you a little as it progresses. For those who absolutely love badass winged dudes flying around and fighting, you'll be in heaven. For the average gamer, it's just not a necessary playthrough. I can't help but think that the developers were constantly high-fiving each other during its creation. There's nothing wrong with a cool scene or character here and there, but moderation is a lovely thing, too. Next time you guys make a prequel, SE, please don't jam it full of irrelevant content, nonsensical fan-fiction-esque plot, and huge wings on everything. That way, players will be able to focus on what it's supposed to be.

Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift (DS)

Final Fantasy Tactics A2
Square-Enix

Review by Lauren

When I beat my other recent Square-Enix tactical RPG, Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume, I found myself at a loss for words when it came to summarizing the experience. There was entirely too much to say, and a lot of it was negative. I looked forward to jumping into Final Fantasy Tactics A2 immediately afterward, excited for the opportunity to have some freedom in a tactical RPG again. I couldn't wait for the joy of building up my units, strategically planning my battles, and just being able to have fun. Not only did I not get what I was expecting, but I actually enjoyed this one even less than VP. I know that there are many who will disagree with me, but I'm still going to give an honest summary of my experience with this game. Despite my initial hopes, it obviously was not a good one.

I enjoyed this game for the first few hours, mostly because I was getting excited to build up my party and unlock quests, as I usually do in tactical RPGs. As a great amount of disappointments revealed themselves, however, I started to dislike this game. I disliked it for the next 70 hours. There is only one reason I continued - because I've decided to not write reviews for games I have not beaten. Yet I felt so strongly about my experience with FFTA2 that I wanted to write about it enough to force myself through the whole main game and bonus content. I still attempted to enjoy my time in this version of Ivalice, but sadly, it only got worse as I progressed. I will apologize in advance for this potentially seeming more like a rant than a review, but some elements seriously need to be addressed that I don't see mentioned elsewhere.

Let's start with the hard part - the gameplay. It's fairly different from FFTA1, but fans of the original will certainly feel at home in the beginning. Laws are back, but in a different way. This time, if you follow the law, you get rewarded, instead of getting severely punished for breaking it. Breaking the law won't end the battle or instantly put the offender in jail, but you will lose a special battle privilege, your ability to revive fallen allies, and your law-based reward at the end. This was a welcome (and almost necessary) addition. Unfortunately, however, enemies don't have to abide by the laws.

But the biggest change with the laws is the fact that they are predetermined - no more walking around the map until you match up a decent law with an enemy encounter. The developers have instead selected specific laws for each and every battle, story and sidequest alike. I was genuinely excited to hear this news, but after a few hours into the game, I found that they took the mean route with it, making me wish it were back to the original law system. If executed correctly, it would have been great, but apparently that was too much to hope. Laws seem to be selected with the intent to annoy the player. No, it does not create a genuine challenge, but instead it simply makes you take more and more of your time to complete the already slow battles lawfully. It becomes so painfully tedious that all my potential enjoyment was sucked out of the majority of battles in the game.

In addition, this law system actually took away another otherwise enjoyable part of the tactical RPG - building up a party that suits the player. If you want to follow the law (and you likely will for several reasons), you'll have to constantly switch characters, jobs, and/or sub-jobs in order to have a functional party without having a chance of breaking the law. This goes for plot missions, sidequests, and even "random encounters," as they all have laws. Battles with undead monsters pretty much require you to bring in certain classes in order to win. If you don't bring the right classes/sub-classes in any situation, you'll run the risk of breaking the law with a counterattack or something of the sort, or simply having a deadweight member or two. Because of this, I found myself completely unattached and apathetic about the members that I spent so long building up - they'd have to be an archer for one fight, then a mage, etc., etc., and not what I was hoping to make them for at least the majority of battles in the game. Never before have I experienced such a lack of satisfaction in a tactical RPG, despite the enormous timesink.

Remember the oddly inaccurate damage estimates and percentages in the original FFTA? Well, they're back and worse than ever. Damage estimates can sometimes be up to 20 HP off, and that's a huge margin considering some laws require you to do less than X amount of damage. No matter how well you plan, you can still get screwed by a deceivingly poor estimate. The percentages are wildly off here as well. 90%+ attacks miss surprisingly often, and there's simply no excuse for this, especially when certain battles require you to not miss. Get ready to reset a lot in battles like those, because even 99% simply can't be trusted. Either I need to buy a lottery ticket, or Square seriously needs to take a course in Probability/Statistics. (Though of course, they did pull off accurate estimates in the past with the original FFT, so there's really no excuse for carrying over this flaw from FFTA.)

After the law of each battle is presented, the player is prompted to choose a "clan privilege." These range from increased movement to constant Regen to the ability to see traps. If you break the law, this privilege is lost. You can add to your list of privileges by completing special quests called clan trials. These special challenges can be accepted at taverns. Most tend to be somewhat luck-based, such as examining the correct barrel out of several choices, or entering a battle where missing is forbidden (and yes, magic and abilities can miss just as easily as attacks). Your clan's stats - aptitude, adaptability, teamwork, and negotiation, are increased (and sometimes the opposite stats are decreased) when you successfully complete one of these trials. It's very easy to max out these stats early on in the game, and they mostly just affect your ability to accept new quests. Beating trials will also earn your clan a new title, which can lower shop prices and such.

Abilities are learned in the same way as FF9, through weapons and armour. For example, equip a sword on your Soldier that has the ability "First Aid" on it, and you'll gain that ability for as long as you have the weapon equipped. After a certain amount of Ability Points are gained, however, the character will permanently learn First Aid and can equip that ability set even after changing equipment or jobs.

Generally, this system works well. Unfortunately, however, previously basic abilities are withheld from the player for a remarkably long time. Some of my personal favourites, such as Dual Wield for Ninjas, Smile Toss for Jugglers, and Rockseal/Last Breath for Assassins are locked away in items that cannot be found or created until much later battles or within the auction house "mini-game."

Weapons and armour are created in an interesting way - the Bazaar system. For those who have played FF12, it will be somewhat familiar. Loot collected from monsters can be sold in a shop, which then allows the vendor to create new items for you to purchase. While this sounds great in concept, it becomes quite cumbersome as the game progresses. When you try to create an item from random loot, you get nothing more than a vague hint and a tiny icon of what that item will be. But once you make it, the loot you used to create this recipe will disappear. Therefore, let's say you try to make something in the "Sundry Sabers" category, only to find that the weapon contains a single ability for a character that you can only recruit after beating the game, and you used up your valuable items in the process of discovering this information. You'll either be glued to FAQs, or you'll be resetting constantly so as not to waste your items (and therefore opportunites to create something you can actually use).

Items can also be gained within the aforementioned auction house mini-game. It's an occasionally available timed event in which the player must attempt to use as few of their auction tokens as possible to just barely beat the rivals' bids. If you aren't conservative enough, you can't win all the auctions in an area and therefore gain control of it, for the reward of being able to bid on rare items. It can be very tough to do this until you memorize your opponents' tells and react quickly to them, so it also ends up being a matter of reset-reset-reset. Or just don't do it and instead gain those crucial items from later quests and the bazaar. Win or lose, in order to participate in another auction session, you have to wait an entire game-year to do it again. That's a lot of wandering or sleeping.

The box advertises 56 jobs, over 300 quests, and hundreds of hours of gameplay. Though they are all technically true statements, the actual truth of them in practice is not such a positive thing. 56 jobs, and they all begin to repeat in no time. Sure, mages get Cure and Protect spells, but look at this new job called Flintlock! It has unique abilities like "Cure Cannon" and "Protect Cannon." Hm. Well, Fusiliers can cause Blind and Silence! But so can Ninjas. And Green Mages. And Elementalists. The repetition makes many jobs pointless to master. Sure, each has some unique abilities, but it's unlikely you'll get to use two similar jobs simultaneously for tougher battles anyway considering how often plot characters are pushed on you.

Three hundred quests indeed. It sounds good, but it can become incredibly boring over time. It doesn't take long to figure out the formula of essentially every sidequest in the game: kill all the bad guys (which may involve saving a suicidal NPC), or examine the sparkly spots. Like them or not, you'll pretty much have to do the majority of the mundane quests, else you'll find yourself too weak to face an early boss and perhaps the last couple of story missions.

I cannot stress enough how slow this game is. Each battle drags on and on, with enemies taking an extremely long time to act. There is no way to turn off battle animations, or to speed the gameplay up. Eventually I found myself setting the DS down and doing something else when enemies had more than one turn in a row, because otherwise I'd be waiting a very long time to act. This slow gameplay only worsened my detachment from the game and characters. It may not seem as slow to a newcomer to tactical RPGs, but seasoned players might find it excruciating. Even easy battles usually take about 20 minutes to complete, which is obviously not pick-up-and-play friendly. Quicksave is thankfully included, but that's a staple for DS RPGs at this point.

The slow gameplay and many quests combine to form what seems to be a long RPG. Yes, it's long. You could spend many hours of your life on this game. But don't let that fool you - it's for the wrong reason. FFTA2 didn't have to take this long to complete. The gameplay time could have been cut down greatly, but instead it drags on and on and on. The story itself is remarkably short, so aside from that, you'll just be doing trivial quests until you burn out or run out.

The law system struck me as something deliberately designed to be annoying or simply time-consuming. This should not be the focus of any game, as people generally play games to have fun, or to have a genuinely satisfying challenge. Many laws do nothing but stretch out the time required to complete a battle exponentially. Some basic ones, for example: no actions by Viera (Viera may only perform basic actions), no magic, or no archery. While it's not challenging to avoid these actions, it's a pain that's just going to waste your time. Unless, of course, you just give up and break the law, which will undoubtedly happen from time to time. For example, a certain battle's law is: "Forbidden: Having debuffs cast on you." And you're up against a party of Tricksters, who then proceed to do essentially nothing but cast several types of debuffs on all of your characters. Come on.

Or "Forbidden: Being Robbed" for a battle with Thieves and other jobs capable of stealing your items and money. And they do, at seemingly every opportunity. Not only do they tend to steal staggeringly large amounts of gil or precious items, but the fact that that can break the law and therefore take away further potential items is simply a slap in the face. Just about every game has a thief-type enemy who will occasionally use Steal, but Thieves (Steal Gil), Vikings (Pickpocket), and Snipers (Wallet Shot) in this game spammed it every time I encountered one. It's painful to see so much progress lost in a game that progresses as slowly as this.

I wouldn't mind if these laws required real strategy, but the above examples are left up to luck (unless you're very far in the game and somehow have ribbons for everyone, but the average gamer will not). There's really no point in a luck-based gameplay system like this. It's neither fun nor strategic. If I wanted luck-based gameplay, I'd buy a pair of dice instead of a new video game in a genre that's proven to be capable of so much more than this.

For as much as I ramble and complain about the gameplay, the plot probably deserves even more criticism. I cannot emphasize enough how weak the story was in this game. It just may be the worst I've seen in an RPG. It was short and disjointed, featuring barely a handful of shallow, underdeveloped characters. There are only 23 story missions in the game, with lots of optional filler quests in between. Some of those quests have tiny subplots of their own, but nothing remarkable. It seems that the writers decided to play the cameo card every so often in order to distract from the poor story. The fourth-to-last battle in the game was seriously just an unrelated tangent with two cameo characters, which had nothing to do with the actual story. Meanwhile, the "serious" story itself was incredibly shallow and seemingly an afterthought. Just drop the word "grimoire" and "magicite" here and there, and apparently that makes a Final Fantasy story now? The rationale they kept giving for this little boy continuing to remain in the storybook world of Ivalice was something along the lines of, "This world sure is cool! I'm not worried about getting home! I might as well do more quests! Hey player, do more quests! Forever."

The graphics in FFTA2 are a step up from its predecessor, boasting colourful backgrounds and character sprites. Even so, they're nothing remarkable for the DS considering other recent releases. The artwork is certainly a unique style - very reminiscent of a children's storybook - which is something players will likely either love or hate. The animations look wonderful, but most players will eventually stop noticing them due to their inconvenient length. My only real graphical complaint is that the sprites become very pixellated on the zoomed-in top screen during battle.

The music is decent, but I found it to be forgettable. It was the same situation with FFTA, if that's any indication, while the original FFT's music still gets in my head at times. Much like the sound effects, the music is just "there." And as much as I disliked the story, the dialogue itself was decent for most of the game, emulating the speech of characters like Balthier and Fran in FF12. They do go a little over the top with it at times, though.

The game does, at least, look nice and clean. A quest map is available in your clan menu, which neatly lays out every quest you've beaten and what else is available. It's one of the few features of this game that I'd like to see implemented in other games. SE also made very effective use of the top screen, and I was happy to see it. During battle, the turn order, as well as the law and privilege, are displayed clearly. You can also cycle further through the currently visible turn order to see the next several turns. And while in the menu screen, more information (such as what classes can equip the item you're viewing) is displayed above. The dual screen is definitely used in a smart way in this one. Too bad the stylus controls weren't done as well, but thankfully the classic button scheme is always an option.

I'm going to summarize with several examples off the top of my head as to why the gameplay itself is simply not well-designed. For starters, Confusion is an especially cruelly programmed ability, as it can (and often will) make your characters use items. And of course, in a completely mundane battle, the first one my main character went for was my Eureka Crystal, a very rare item best saved for difficult boss fights. This happened yet again in another battle. Reset, reset, reset. By the way, Confused Ninjas can and will throw weapons, even your most rare/valuable ones. Reset again.

In one fight, the law forbade "targeting a distant enemy." I randomly got a critical hit on an enemy, which knocked him back. Violation! Yes, even though you aren't targeting a distant enemy, like it says, it still dings you for being the cause of knocking it back. Some clarification would have been nice here. Similarly, a battle which forbade knockback threw a violation at me for a random critical hit. Sure, I could have gone the whole fight using only abilities instead of physical attacks to avoid this possibility, but the randomness (critical hits are luck-based) with which the law can be broken is still just silly.

When an undead enemy hits zero HP, it turns into a gravestone, which always faces the same forward angle. I once went to use Burial on an enemy like this (which banishes it from the battlefield so it won't revive). Apparently when the enemy died, it was facing away from me, because when I hit the gravestone from what appeared to be directly in front, I got a violation for "back attacks." Seriously. Again, clarification would have been nice in the form of them bothering to animate a few more angles of a gravestone sprite.

Again, my greatest joy in a tactical RPG comes in the form of building up a party of cool and interesting jobs. Do so all you like in this game, but be prepared for story characters to constantly oust your customized characters during almost every plot battle. This becomes especially infuriating if you don't care for some of the weak plot members. The final battles of the game take four of your six party slots up with the plot characters. I hope you didn't waste too much time building up a full party of non-plot characters like me in order to face the final confrontations, or you just might feel bitter at that point.

One quest has you selecting a single character to join a party of moogles, which you must protect. This is especially great when one of your "helpers" is a Tinker, who can very easily Haste all the enemies right off the bat. Sure, it's just a matter of hoping for the best or resetting if that happens, but I literally had to set the DS down and do something else for several minutes because there was such an absurdly long span of time in which I could not even choose an action. We buy games to play them, not watch them happen helplessly. And sure enough, after healing the most damaged NPC to full health with my one whopping turn, I lost the quest before even getting to act again. Hooray for interactivity.

Traps are littered all over most of the in-game maps for seemingly no reason other than to annoy the player and/or force you to use Libra instead of an actually beneficial clan privilege. Enemies very rarely step on them, and sometimes are even immune to them. Some inflict very high damage, while others can actually charm a character on the spot. Again, it's just an unnecessary inclusion that doesn't add any strategy or fun to the experience.

Some battles require you to use a special command in order to proceed, such as "Examine" for sparkling points or barrels. However, sometimes your characters get a special ability as battles progress (much like a limit break meter). Unfortunately, the latter takes precedence over the former. You cannot examine something until you use up your special ability. This can be troublesome in battles such as the time-sensitive "check the right barrel to win" clan trial. Another unnecessary inconvenience that could have been avoided with another menu option, which should definitely be the case with two unrelated commands.

As I mentioned, several decent abilities from past games are kept from the player for a good portion of the game unless you go very far out of your way to get them. But once you get to a certain point, everyone just learns Ultima Masher, Ultima Shot, Ultima Blade, Ultima Charge, and Ultima-whatever to do pretty much the same absurd damage to everything, including bosses. In this sense, I found it to be very imbalanced. The battles were a joke near the end - I literally one-hit-KOed the second-to-last boss of the game as soon as I got in range. The abilities are just plain broken, and at that point, I hadn't even gone out of my way for them.

I could go on for days like this, but the bottom line is that the gameplay in FFTA2 seems almost designed to be annoying and time-consuming. Despite how promising and pretty it looks on the outside, that outer shell hides a surprisingly shallow game. It's quantity over quality - lots of jobs, but lots of repetition within them. Lots of quests with tons of repetition among those, too, alongside a weak plot. Battles generally do not require real strategy, but merely the act of bringing in the "right" classes or just breaking the law and losing potential rewards. It's a simple timesink, and if you don't read into things too much like I have, you might still enjoy it. But with the generally annoying law system and vague item descriptions in the bazaar, FFTA2 all too often becomes Final Fantasy Tactics: Reset. Sorry, I can't give it a 9 or 10 just because it's a well-known company releasing a pretty-looking game that boasts about its big numbers. So many aspects of it were simply not well-designed, subjective opinions of "fun" and "not fun" aside.

In case I've rambled on too long and lost the interest of readers for the body of the review, I understand and would like to finish with one more example:

In a random battle, three turns occurred in which I attempted to attack my opponents, all of whom had no special abilities (such as Evasion Up). Let's assume that all of my attacks hit. There is an 84.6% chance of that happening. Makes sense, right? But in actuality, my characters missed a 90% chance of hitting an enemy, followed by a 95% and then a 99% chance of doing the same. If we do the math... there is a 0.005% chance of that occuring.

And that's about the same probability of my purchasing the next Final Fantasy Tactics Advance title.

Final Fantasy III (DS)

Final Fantasy III
Matrix/Square-Enix

Lauren: I had never played the original Final Fantasy III, so I began the DS remake with few expectations. That was probably the best way to go about it. In short, I didn't love the beginning, then had fun with the middle, but a lot of the fun-factor faded toward the end.

The FMV introduction was very pretty and up to Square-Enix's usual CG standards. The 3D transition was mostly successful in the game itself, though the character models did look a bit blocky at times. The many brown dungeons throughout the game could have at least had some graphical variation among them.

SE made a good effort at localizing FF3 and throwing in self-references - I was amused by NPC lines such as "Rally-ho! Oops, I mean... lali-ho!" Unfortunately, I didn't find myself caring much about the characters or plot. Apparently I was supposed to be sad when certain things happened to certain characters, but it's hard to be attached when I just met them mere minutes ago. I suppose it meant more back in the day when such plot devices were a new concept. The ending was not very satisfying, either, with lots of repetition and forced "cuteness."

The job system, however, was quite fun. In fact, it's probably the only reason I continued playing. While nothing was particularly original about the gameplay by today's standards, it was still fun to pick different jobs, try them out, and level them up. I actually spent a lot of time in the middle of the game exp-grinding to power up several interesting jobs.

Sadly, the job classes got a lot less exciting once I reached the point where just about any melee job will serve the same purpose. The damage caps at 9999 relatively early on in mid-to-late-game levelling, therefore providing no reason to use a job that would exploit enemy weaknesses or use any real strategy whatsoever. It's the same result in any case, and there is little genuine challenge to be found toward the end of the game.

I was especially annoyed to see that in order to participate in some end-game sidequests, such as getting the best weapons or unlocking the final job quest, I'd have to hassle someone else to dust off their cartridge, register me, and deal with me spamming them with a message every hour, seven times total. I fail to see the point in this when it has nothing to do with the actual sidequests. You have to message characters in the game after that, but having to do something so arbitrary first simply seems like an excuse to say that they included "wi-fi features" in the game. Not everyone has wireless internet or wants to bug someone else to help them with a single-player game. And even so, Anthony used this "feature" when he played, and encountered many connectivity and registration difficulties in the process. That's not a feature - that's an annoyance. It's just plain silly to withhold the best things in a game from anyone who wants to play a single-player RPG solo.

The "zoom" feature was another unnecessary addition. For those who don't know, the only way to find hidden items is to zoom in on areas with the shoulder buttons in order to find sparkling spots that contain treasure. However, there's no pattern to where these items are placed, and you don't know if an item is there unless you happen to hit the shoulder button at the right spot by some random luck. Or you can run around for the whole game with the camera zoomed in, which is incredibly awkward. Yet another annoyance masquerading as a feature. The many caves that require you to be in Mini-mode were a little unnecessary as well. I got the point after the first one.

It also bears mentioning that old-school games like this can be a bit unforgiving at times. As in, "Hey look, an area on the world map that's accessible currently and relatively close to where I'm supposed to go!" Yeah, the enemies there will hit you for more than your max HP. If you don't mind situations like that, it shouldn't be a problem.

I want to give it a bit of a free pass because I realize that it's an old game at the core, but I can't help wondering how much more replay value or strategic gameplay they could have put into it instead of that gorgeous but unnecessary CG intro. And something - anything but blackness - would have been nice to have on the other screen. That sort of thing is just about inexcusable these days, considering the capabilities of the DS.

If you liked FFV's job system or other old-school RPGs, you'll probably enjoy this one. FFXI fans will also be happy to see references like the familiar Provoke and Boost animations. As an RPG on it own, it holds up fairly well, but don't go into it expecting too much.

---

Anthony: Ah, FF3. Well, I got you as a gift pretty much just because I wanted to say I’d played or beaten all FF games (only haven’t beaten 10, woe). And should you have come out in this day and age, you probably would’ve been staring at a nice score of say, 4 or so for your very simplistic story, gameplay and terrible use of the DS hardware.

I have to be fair though, it’s a remake of a very old game... so yes, the story will be cliché and utterly meaningless by today’s standards. Scenes have no emotional impact that I’m sure were supposed to be epic... but I just don’t care too much about those squat, chubby sprites. The job system was a very nice addition that built on what FF1 started. It’s just not special by today’s standards, and even a little weak perhaps.

In a certain sense, FF3 is an achievement, in that they took an old game and fully realized it in 3D. But this is hardly the first time it’s been done, and actually they made some pretty horrible choices in doing so. The blank bottom screen for battles is inexcusable. I don’t care if you have memory restrictions – take out the pointless but pretty intro, shrink areas, take out the retarded Mognet system, or hell, skip the 3D element and make a beautiful 2D rendition of the game if it takes that to use that incredibly basic element of the DS.

The only other thing I want to nitpick is that SE’s asking price of $40 was ridiculous. Granted, that seems par for their course now, but this is a very flawed, very basic remake of a very old game. Pricing that significantly above the average price point is a joke, when in reality it should’ve been even lower. I almost want to bash it more, but the truth is, it’s an otherwise solid remake of a game that was pretty darn good for its time. It’s just utterly forgettable.

Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo’s Dungeon (Wii)

Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo’s Dungeon
h.a.n.d./Square-Enix

Review by Anthony

Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo’s Dungeon was a great little game. But I’ll get to that. First I want to comment on a basic absurdity of Square-Enix’s pricing... why would they do us the favor of pricing this lovely little game $10 lower than the usual new Wii game, and in doing so give me about 40 hours of good playtime... then turn around and charge $10 more for their new DS releases, which contain among them, ~15 hour mediocre RPGs and several remakes of old games? I get that Square-Enix really likes money, but why be nice here and cruel with the platform where they’re putting out the most software for right now?

Anyway, although I rented the only stateside release, Chocobo’s Dungeon 2, back in the day, I didn’t particularly enjoy it. Now having done a few dungeon crawlers and liking more of what I saw in reviews/previews of this, I decided to eventually give this a shot. I’m glad I did. This is a well made game that managed to be fun, simple to play, and have enough variety in options that it always felt intriguing.

What’s good:
- The job system works great here. From trying out the ones I liked and later giving them all a shot, I’m impressed with how well they balanced the job system. Aside from specialized and/or bonus dungeons that require specific talents, I found that you can really stick to the kind of job you enjoy and succeed in the game with good strategy. I really enjoyed running around as a Thief, but I levelled many other jobs that were equally useful and fun.
- Unlike my neutral feeling towards Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates’ overly convoluted armor/weapon forging system, Chocobo’s Dungeon gets it exactly right. It’s easy to hone weapons/armor to be stronger, fuse new weapons/armor with your old ones to “upgrade” them, and add/remove special modifiers as needed. I love the aspect in games of getting stronger armor/weapons along the way and noticing the differences, and this game captured that well and just as simply as it needed to.
- The menu and inventory system works at blazing speed, and has got to be some sort of technical achievement. I can’t remember the last game I’ve seen that has a menu to pop up instantly, and with quick shortcuts in and out of skill/item menus, you feel like you can do or see anything you need to within a second. This was very appreciated, especially when managing inventory.
- Similarly, it controls well. Using the wii-mote alone, the D-pad moves you around, 2 attacks, 1 faces the nearest enemy, A brings up the menu, and A+1/A+2 bring up items or skills. That’s basically all you need to know, and it works perfectly well.
- The music is fantastic. If you’re a Final Fantasy fan, it’s full of beautifully remixed versions of Final Fantasy music from FF1 to FF11.. and later contains a jukebox to listen to them all and find out which game each is from. If you’re not a fan, then the music is either pretty or cool depending on the scenario.
- I enjoyed the story. No seriously. It’s a given that if you’re talking dungeon crawling RPGs, you’re not doing it for the storyline. Add in that you have a small, doe-eyed yellow bird as the hero and you expect it even less. That said, I was fairly engaged in the storyline, and enjoyed it better than much of the storyline tripe offered to me in other SE RPGs I’ve played lately. It’s still silly and twists are somewhat predictable, but they at least tried, and I commend them for that.

What’s neutral:


- The hometown is nice and colorful to navigate, but an option to quickly jump between important locations would be preferred. Trekking on foot to the church to uncurse items, a shop to buy/sell items, the forge to work on your armor/weapon, the warehouse to store items, the farm to check on your flowers, then back to whatever dungeon... there was really no reason to walk around all different parts of town to do those things.
- No volume controls of SFX/Music/Voice? I thought that was pretty standard these days with console RPGs, and unfortunately leads to the next bad point:

What’s bad:
- Upon unlocking a person’s memories and while descending to new floors of dungeons, you’re treated to the characters’ internal monologues as they remember their past. Unfortunately, they do this with an absolutely shrill tone to many of their voices that’s overly loud to the rest of the music/sound effects. It was bad enough that I’d have to turn down the volume when these happened, or warn my wife that the scenes were about to come because they’d be so startlingly unpleasant.
- When I got to the final boss, I used several items to buff myself up and approach him, only to do 0 damage and for him to do a mandatory 9999 damage so I’d get back up and beat him... except of course, I lost those buffs and the items it took to do them. Really, programmers, we’re still making this annoying mistake?

In the end, I got to play a tiny, cartoonish yellow bird as he put on costumes and kicked many mythical monsters into oblivion... and I loved every minute of it. Changing jobs and finding out what worked for different situations, levelling jobs up, and figuring out strategies on some of the trickier parts... I found it all quite fun. If a turn-based dungeon crawler starring a cutesy bird doesn’t sound appealing, then by all means, avoid. Otherwise, it’s an innocuous little game that I enjoyed significantly more than I expected to.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates (DS)

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates
Square-Enix

Review by Anthony

Sometimes when I see major gaming sites universally laud a game, and then find many player reviews being more critical, I’m left to wonder exactly what the cause is. In many cases, we’ve noticed that Square Enix games are almost universally free from criticism in the press, and I’ve yet to see a major review site criticize their absurd $39.99 starting price for many average-at-best DS games, even if they may thrash more reasonably priced Atlus or NIS games. It’s a good thing I picked up Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates for half the price new, or I’d have been quite the sucker for some of these absurd reviews.

Ring of Fates is not a good game. It’s a well-presented game that certainly does some things well and pushes the hardware, but it is not a good game. But for the sake of credit where credit is due, I’ll start with what’s good.

What’s good:
- The graphics and dungeon sizes clearly push the hardware. It looks good often, even if I generally dislike the pudgy, short character models in these games. Some classic FF monsters are represented here and look good with many frames of animation.
- The dungeons are interesting and held together by good control. There are a few puzzles and areas that use multiple characters’ abilities to get by, and to that extent, I appreciated it. I found navigating areas by jumping around easy and even fun at times.
- Effort was put into making it seem more than the average action RPG... the main character at least would do a stomp attack if he stood on enemies, he’d flip upward if hanging onto flying bats, and can pick up enemies and ram them into walls. Cool.

What’s neutral:
- There’s a good amount of voice acting, but with two young kids as heroes and a little whatever sprite-like creature saying “teensy weensy~” etc. whateverthecrap, it ended up annoying.
- Customizable armor sets exist for everyone and have them look like classic FF jobs... but it’s basically meaningless. It doesn’t bestow any abilities in doing so. Similarly...
- The ability to forge weapons and armor from items dropped would’ve been great if not for them putting it in such a clunky system. Monsters drop items and drop recipes and some recipes can be bought and some items can be bought but you need a certain number of recipes to make items but can augment them with items that produce random results...? I don’t feel like going into more detail except to say it’s largely trial and error (yet costs money) and could have been made much simpler.

What’s bad:
- The whole magic system in general. For all the effort they put into giving you various types of magicite and allowing you to layer more than one spell, or have various party members combine spells... enjoy using none of it! The screen view is too small to see where you’re casting from very far away, enemies attacking will interrupt your spells as you try to layer/combo them with a very slow targeting circle, and even if you spend the money to make very magic-inclined armor/weaponry, bosses can just outright resist attack spells and take no damage, assuming you have time to target and cast. Awesome.
- AI is a joke... in general, you’ll probably want to use the main character the whole game, because despite that he has a powerful five hit combo for attacking, if you leave the AI to him, he’ll run up to enemies, pause, slash once, and stop. Really? You can’t set your magically inclined party members to use magic either, since it works on expendable items, so be ready for an often useless party to be dying on you in battle.
- Game length for my one playthrough was 16 hours. When I play RPGs, I tend to very fully explore them and be levelled so as not to miss things and require a second playthrough. So, I often take a good 10 hours longer than most people show for their RPG playthroughs. Here’s a $40 RPG I did the same for and got 16 hours out of? Embarassingly short for the price and repetitive gameplay.
- The reward for beating the game is just a Hard Mode with enemies that have significantly higher HP and drop rates. If anyone genuinely wants to do that, they should be able to choose the option at the beginning, not unlock it after one playthrough.
- They add collection quests that can only be finished using 2-player local multi-cart play. No one really likes knowing they can’t finish a quest because they don’t know a friend who also bought said game and is willing to play it currently.
- The story is bad... juuust bad. Obnoxious, stereotypical characters for the most part, and it’s full of RPG clichés that have existed since NES days.

I would say that having a second player might help deal with the dreadful partner AI and allow options for robust magic casting.. but why? The story’s bad, the collection aspects end up unsatisfying, and the battles are still better won by button mashing with the hero, so why bother?

So we’re left with a game that gives you a party of four characters that it will control poorly. Then it gives you a detailed magic system that you won’t be able to use in practice. Next it gives a system of item creation that makes next to no difference and is both random and not user friendly. Finally, it ends the mess of a story in ~15 hours and rewards you with the ability to do it all again, only harder.

Sadly for Square-Enix, this game has kept me extremely wary of ever buying their DS games new or near full price again... and good luck getting me to buy a Crystal Chronicles game.