How I Judge Games

So, it's been over two weeks since the last time I posted anything. Completely my bad there. I swear to God, I have finished Superstar Saga, I just haven't gotten around to finishing the review yet. And, honestly, given what's happened, I'm just going to come out and say it: I will no longer be putting out reviews on a weekly basis. I'll still do it, but doing it every single week is just too much alongside school and the like. I'll still be reviewing games, just not as often. I still plan on having weekly content, just not always reviews. The basic plan I have right now is going to be talking about video game news, maybe occasionally given commentary on recurring ideas in video games (escort missions, stealth sections, that kind of thing), the basic gist is, I'll still have stuff every week. Just not reviews.

Honestly, I don't why I'm doing this apology when I don't even have any readers, but there you go.

Anyway, on to the point of this post. A little bit of backstory first: About a week ago, I had an... argument, I suppose you could say, about what makes a game good. Okay, it was actually about whether or not Square Enix's remake of Final Fantasy III for the DS was a good game, but how games are judged was definitely brought into it. So, it got me thinking: How do I judge a game? I spent some thinking about it, and came up with the following guidelines. Generally speaking, they will be listed in order of importance to me, though not always. A game doesn't have to do well in all of these categories, but it shouldn't fail at many either.

Just as a note: Yes, there are my opinions, but I don't think they're that unusual. Some people might put more emphasis on an area that I don't consider as much, but I feel like if you ask most people, they'll give more or less the same categories as I have.

A second note: Just to demonstrate what I'm referring to with these categories, I'm going to be talking about Final Fantasy III, again for the DS. This isn't going to be a full-on review, as I've never played enough of it to feel comfortable reviewing it, just to give my first impressions of it. Now, when I had this... argument, the person with whom I was arguing tried to make the case that you can't judge it against modern games, since the original came out in 1990. I have the following to say to that: No. No, you can indeed judge a remake against games that came out alongside it. Square Enix released the DS remake in 2006, which means they must have felt that it would be a comparable gaming experience to games that came out that year. So, since I am talking about the DS remake, I will be judging it based on the standards of 2006, not 1990.

Gameplay

This category should be pretty obvious: How well does the game play? Of course, if the game doesn't play well, it isn't a very good game. Playing the game should be easy to learn, but still difficult to master, thus making the game accessible yet still challenging. As an aside, I'm not putting this one first because it's the most important to me. I just recognize that it is a very important part of any game.

Final Fantasy III plays perfectly well enough. It's a Final Fantasy game, and, in my experience, those have all played perfectly well*. I'm not particularly fond of having to buy and equip spells, but it doesn't ruin the game for me. And I genuinely did like the Job System. I wish that they'd included that in some of the other games which I've played. I've heard that it was done better in Final Fantasy V, so I might have to give that one a shot at some point.

Story

This category is much more important to me than gameplay. I view gaming first and foremost as a story-telling medium. Generally, it's important to me that, in addition to being fun to play, it also tells an interesting story. Mind you, I don't expect this of all games I play (Mario in particular comes to mind), but I am genuinely pleased when I get a good story out of it (Mario & Luigi in particular comes to mind).

Unless the game took a very drastic change after I stopped playing it, Final Fantasy III does not have much when it comes to a compelling story. It's a very standard "This guy is trying to destroy the world, you have to stop him" thing, and it's just not very interesting to play. It sort of frustrates me, because I saw this basic concept used much more successfully in Final Fantasy IV, though I think that part of what made me like the story in that game more lies in the next category.

Characters

Even if a story is not compelling, good characters can very easily redeem it. These can range from characters with whom you sympathize, badasses that get you excited every time they show up or open their mouths, or comic-relief that can always bring a smile every time they do something silly. One of my favorite examples of this is in the Baldur's Gate series, particularly Minsc. For those of you who haven't played the game, first off, stop reading this. I want you to go to Beamdog (www.beamdog.com) and pre-order the Enhanced Edition of Baldur's Gate. It's coming out November 30th, and it's going to be awesome. Secondly, Minsc was easily my favorite character in that game, and probably one of my favorite fictional characters period. He managed to fit into the last two of those categories I mentioned earlier. He was both ready to jump into battle at a moment's notice, and, even more importantly, was completely insane. In a funny way, of course. He had a pet hamster named Boo who gave him advice. Seriously, go get Baldur's Gate. The only reason I'm stopping talking about Minsc is because I need to move, since this isn't about him**.

On the other hand, Final Fantasy III didn't really have any characters. I am aware that Final Fantasy I, II, and III share this flaw, as they all let you name and basically insert yourself into the characters, but I'm not sure that's necessarily for the best. I mean, memory serving, the reason Link never speaks is so the player can insert himself into the role of the hero, and yet you still get a good idea of what Link is like as a character through his actions. The characters in Final Fantasy III do speak, but they don't really have any personality. And I feel like that is a real detriment to this game.

Music

As you could probably infer from my Bastion review, I enjoy good game music. Really, good music in general, but since we're talking about video games, I'll just be talking about video game music here. Firstly, good music will not make a bad game good. If I really want to listen to the music so badly, I have Youtube. However, it will make a good game great. One of my favorite parts of playing Chrono Trigger is hearing Yasunori Mitsuda's (and Nobou Uematsu's) score. It has some phenomenal themes, and if I could ever manage to find a reasonably priced copy of the soundtrack, I would buy it in a heartbeat.

Now, the music in Final Fantasy III is NOT bad. It's Nobou Uematsu, he's a great composer, blah blah blah. But, like I said earlier, good music does not redeem a bad game. So, moving on to the final category.

Something Special

Like with Gameplay, this is not going at the end because it's the least important, but rather because it's a miscellaneous category. It's basically just anything that makes a game memorable. For example, the Portal Gun in Portal, or the time-rewinding mechanic in Braid, or the narration in Bastion. Unlike music, this can redeem an otherwise bad game good, if only for the novelty of whatever the something special is.

Final Fantasy III... doesn't have anything special. I know I said earlier that I really liked the Job System, but I then pointed out that it was used in other Final Fantasy games, just not ones which I've played. And from what I've heard, these other games, V in particular, do it better, so even not having played them, I'd recommend them over III. 

So, these are the standards by which I judge games. And I really don't like having to say this, but Final Fantasy III does not generally live up to these standards. The gameplay is solid, and the music is good, so if that's all you care about it games, go ahead and play it. But if you like a game with soul, I cannot bring myself to recommend you play it.

Again, all of these judgments are based off of my first impressions of the game. For all I know, the game could become worlds better after the point at which I stopped playing, but I just can't see that happening. 

Well, I think that's about all I have to say for this entry. I think from now on I'm going to stick with Saturdays for posting new material, so if I happen to get readers, expect new entries on Saturdays now. I'm not sure what I'm going to have up just yet, but I'll try my best to have something.

Until then, later!

*Note: My experience with Final Fantasy games includes III, IV, IV: The After Years, VI, and VII. Any comments about gameplay in other Final Fantasy titles will therefore mean nothing to me.

**But seriously, Minsc is awesome. And he's voiced by Jim Cummings! What, you don't know who Jim Cummings is? Go look him up on IMDB. He's done a ridiculous number of voice acting roles, I'm sure you'll find something you recognize.

Pokemon Conquest

So, here's my next review. I suppose I should say this up front: I'm pretty sure I'm some kind of Pokemon fanboy. I have owned just about every game since Crystal, even some that I really regret (Long story short, since I'll probably never review it: Don't buy Pokemon Dash. Ever. It's not good). I'm also a fan of Turn-Based Strategy games, particularly the Fire Emblem series (I'll probably end up reviewing a couple of these at some point in the future. They are good). So, when I found out that there was going to be a Pokemon-based TBS game, I was pretty excited. So, with that out of the way, let's get started with Pokemon Conquest.

Pokemon Conquest, known as Pokemon + Nobunaga's Ambition in Japan, is something like the 20th Pokemon spin-off game, and also something like the 26th game in the Nobunaga's Ambition franchise. It is a crossover between the Pokemon and Nobunaga's Ambition series, or, rather, a game in the Nobunaga's Ambition franchise with Pokemon. It's the first Nobunaga's Ambition game released in America, and if it sells half as well as most Pokemon games, it will likely not be the last.

In Conquest, you play as the Warlord of the Aurora kingdom in the Ransei region. A warlord from the far North, Nobunaga, has begun conquering the other kingdoms, in hopes of fulfilling a legend that whosoever rules all 17 kingdoms will gain the power of the creator of the region. You decide to try to conquer the region yourself, in order to stop whatever Nobunaga might be planning.

Gameplay wise, Conquest is pretty standard for Turn-Based Strategy games, at least standard for the ones I've played. You control various warlords and warrior, each bonded to a Pokemon, and fight off wild Pokemon and other warlords. If you defeat a warlord, and fulfill a few other requirements, the warlord can join your team. Your warlords can also form bonds with wild Pokemon, having them join that particular warlord, though each warlord can only have so many Pokemon at a time. In battle, all of your warlords make their moves, and then all of your opponents make their moves. This repeats until somebody wins the battle.

Story wise, this game is nothing special. Basically, it's a standard Pokemon game. You have to get through the 17 kingdoms/gyms, defeating the warlords/gym leaders, adding new Pokemon to your team as time goes on. Honestly, nothing more to say here. The characters that join your team, even discounting the generic warriors, don't really have anything that distinguishes them. Honestly, this game kind of falls flat here. I really enjoyed the story in Black/White, with its examination of whether or not it's right to train Pokemon. And then this is just... blah. It's not bad, it's not good, it barely even is.

At about this point in the last two reviews, I went over something that really stuck out to me in the game, for good or bad, like the Drop mechanic and Flick Rush in Kingdom Hearts 3D, or the narration and soundtrack in Bastion. This time, though... there's nothing. Nothing in this game really stuck out to me. As a Pokemon game, it doesn't do anything new besides be a Turn-Based Strategy game, and as a Turn-Based Strategy game, it doesn't doesn't do anything new besides have Pokemon. I suppose the simple combination of these two does enough to justify the game, but at the same time, there's nothing that gets an emotional response from me. It feels like it should be something that I should like, and yet, I don't really feel anything for it. I don't hate it, but at the same time, I didn't really like it either.

So, do I recommend this game? No. No I don't. It's not that it's bad, it's just boring. If you're a huge enough fan of Pokemon, you'll probably get this game anything, so I hope you enjoy it. But I can't suggest someone get this game otherwise. It's a nice enough time-waster, but that's about it.

So, when I first started this whole review thing, I said that I was going to mostly review older games. But here we are at review three, and all of my reviews thus far have been games released in the last year. But now, we finally come to something just a little bit older. So, be sure to come back next week for Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga.

Bastion

And here we are with my second ever review. If you’ve read my last one, welcome back. If you haven’t, then have a seat and make yourself comfortable. Yes, that does mean that if you read the last one, you aren’t allowed to be comfortable. Deal with it.

This time around, I’ll be looking at the game Bastion. This game was released last year on Steam and Xbox Live Arcade, and earlier this year on the Mac App Store. Bastion tells the story of The Kid, a survivor of The Calamity in his home of Caelondia. The Kid then begins a journey to find pieces of Core, a substance that is keeping the remaining few parts of land in existence. He brings these pieces of Core back to The Bastion, which he then uses in order to expand it. But as he learns more about what caused the Calamity, the lines of who's right and wrong being to blur, and an army seeking retribution begins to rise...

Gameplay-wise, this game is pretty easy to play. You move with the arrow keys, and have two weapons, one assigned to each of the mouse buttons. You can change which weapons you have equipped at Arsenals, scattered infrequently across the levels, as well as in the Bastion, the game’s hub. By the end of the game, you’ll have eleven different weapons from which to choose, ranging from the basic Cael Hammer to the insanely destructive (and fun) Galleon Mortar, which, for those of you who can’t or won’t do the math, gives you a total of fifty-five different potential weapon combinations to fight off your foes.  As you gain experience from fighting enemies, you gain new slots in the Distillery in the Bastion, allowing you to equip drinks with groan-inducing pun names, like Stabsinthe, which damages enemies when they damage you, or Hearty Punch, which gives you another chance to continue should you run out of health. Should you run out of health without any continues remaining, you’ll be sent back to the Bastion, and have to repeat the entire level. However, this only happened to me one or two times, and the levels aren’t ridiculously long, so it isn’t overall that annoying. As far as gameplay goes, this game doesn’t really do anything particularly innovative. In all honesty, it’s the story where this game shines.

This story is certainly different from the standard game. Nowhere in this game is there anything resembling the basic ’stop the Big Bad from destroying/taking over the world,’ because in Bastion, the world has already been destroyed. You’re not trying to save the world, you’re trying to build a new one from the scraps of the original. There’s no real antagonist in this game, just other groups trying to survive, just like you. There’s this one point in the game where you find a piece of Core that has been claimed by a group of monsters. These monsters have banded together, using the Core to form their own Bastion of sorts. It becomes a bit of conflict for the player as to whether or not its right to take this piece of Core and destroy their home just to improve yours.

At this point I’d like to go off on a slight tangent and talk about the narrator. Rucks, played by Logan Cunningham, a man who has not had nearly enough roles if you ask me, narrates about everything. No, seriously, everything. Every event, he’ll be giving a play-by-play. You remember how I mentioned earlier that the game gives fifty-five different weapon combinations to use? Yeah, Rucks  has a different comment for each and every one of them. Any item you find in the game? Take it to him in the Bastion, he’ll have something to say about it. Any building you build, achievement you gain, challenge you overcome, he’ll say something. Say you fall to your death, (which will happen, apparently the Cataclysm was especially unkind to walls) he’ll give you snark about it. Just the sheer amount of recording this man did is impressive, and the quality of the lines is a credit to both the actor and the writer.

Something else that strongly deserves mentioning in this game is the music. This wasn’t something I went over  last week in Kingdom Hearts 3D, but I need to talk about it here. The music in this game, simply put, is great. I was lucky enough to decide to get the Soundtrack Edition of the game, which, as it sounds, is both the game itself and a copy of the soundtrack. This is not a decision I regret. Darren Korb did a great job composing the songs, writing the lyrics for a few tracks, and even recording vocals for two songs. So, if you are a music lover, I would recommend getting the soundtrack with the game. And even if you don’t, as long as you have the game, you can still get the soundtrack later. It’s just that Steam, for whatever reason, won’t let you get the soundtrack unless you have the game. Seems strange to me, but there you go.

Now, my last word. Do I recommend this game or not? Well, really, this should seem like a fairly obvious answer: Yes. Yes I do. Immensely. Seriously, why are you still reading this? You obviously have a computer with an internet connection. Go onto Steam, find this game’s page, hit the ‘Add to Cart’ button, pay for the game, download it, and then play it. Unless you’re some kind of crazy bizarro-person, you will almost certainly enjoy this game.

As a final side note, if you do get this game on Steam, once you’ve beaten the game, be sure to start a New Game Plus and play through until you build the Arsenal for a special treat.

So, this concludes my second review. I hope you’ve enjoyed it, and be sure to come back next week, when I review something very different, a bit more mainstream, and from a series just a little bit closer to my heart: Pokemon Conquest.

Kingdom Hearts 3D

So, if you’re reading this, I guess the first thing I should say is ‘Hello.’ I’m Flitterbie, and this is From One Nerd to Another. A few weeks ago I decided that wanted to try doing video game reviews. I'm not sure that I'm going to be any good at it, and I'm not even sure that this is the best place to even be doing it, but I figured I'd give it a shot anyway. My basic plan is to have a new review of a different game up every week. Now, most of the games I'm going to be reviewing are probably going to be a little bit older, simply because I don't have the budget to keep buying new games. However, my first game is a new one, having just come out three weeks ago: Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance.

Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance  is the eighth title in the Kingdom Hearts franchise, which just celebrated its tenth anniversary in March. For the five or so people on the internet not already at least vaguely familiar with this series, it is a creation of both Square Enix and Disney, featuring an original character traveling across numerous worlds, usually based off of Disney movies, and fighting monsters in these worlds with a Keyblade, a weapon in the shape of a, well, key which can be used to open any lock, even if that lock is really more metaphorical, like the lock on a person‘s heart. Kinda cheesy at times, but an all-around fun series, especially when you get to have boss fights against Disney villains you especially loved to hate. This time around, the player controls both Sora, the main protagonist of the series, as well as Riku, childhood friend and one-time antagonist of Sora.

At the beginning of this game, Sora and Riku are told by Master Yen Sid (of ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ in the 1940 film Fantasia) that they must undergo a Mark of Mastery Exam in order to be considered true Keyblade Masters. In this case, their exam in to visit seven ‘sleeping’ worlds, worlds that were at one time lost to the darkness and have yet to return. In these worlds, they must find and unlock the seven Sleeping Keyholes, and therefore allow the worlds to re-awaken. As they journey through these worlds, however, they encounter past foes they had thought defeated, as well as a new face: a young man in a dark coat who seems to have ill intent for both. It looks as though Sora and Riku will have a much harder time passing this exam than Master Yen Sid ever intended…

Now then, on to gameplay. 3D has a fairly similar control scheme to Kingdom Hearts Re:coded, the last title in the series. Some new additions, however, lie in the Flowmotion, Reality Shift, and Dream Eater mechanics. Flowmotion is a new means of both getting around and fighting. You dash into, or in some cases, jump onto, various objects, such as walls, poles, or railings, and it allows the player to gain a huge burst of speed. In addition to this, you can also use it for special attacks, doing much more damage than your normal attacks would.

Reality Shift is a special kind of attack that changes depending on the world you’re in. It can be activated occasionally on enemies as you do damage to them, and can also be used on certain objects found in the game. All of these abilities use the touch screen. For example, in Traverse Town, you can use the Sling Shot to aim and catapult enemies at each other. In Country of the Musketeers, the world based of 2004’s Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers, you can use Wonder Comic to follow instructions to cause your enemy to launch out of the bottom screen, causing damage to all surrounding foes. When done properly, all Reality Shifts will eliminate the enemy directly attacked, and will likely deal a good bit of damage to enemies around them as well.

The Dream Eaters are both enemies and allies in the game. The first kind of Dream Eater you encounter are Nightmares, dark Dream Eaters that are explicitly stated to be the sleeping worlds’ equivalent of the Heartless. However, as you fight the Nightmares, you find Dream Pieces, which you can then combine to create Spirits, friendly Dream Eaters that will help you fight the Nightmares. Each Spirit has an Ability Grid, which contains various Commands and Abilities for you to use. This can be anything from a basic Fire spell to the incredibly useful Once More ability. You start at one spot in the ability grid, and work your way outwards towards better abilities by spending Link Points, which you gain by fighting and bonding with your Spirits. As your Spirits fight with you, their Link Gauges also fill up. When the Link Gauge is full, you can activate it to combine the Spirit’s power with Sora/Riku. For Sora, this manifests as a powerful combination attack, whereas for Riku, the Spirit adds its strength to his own, increasing his damage output as well as adding an element to the damage he deals.

Now, since this is supposed to be a review, I suppose I should be giving my opinions, rather than just summarizing. Overall, I like this game. Gameplay-wise, it’s fairly simple to learn, and the mechanics make the game a fair bit more enjoyable than other titles in the series. When it comes to my opinion on the story, well, that gets a little more complicated. As far as adapting the Disney movies into worlds goes, I’m a little conflicted. I’ve never seen The Three Musketeers, so I can’t comment on how well that gets adapted into this game. On a similar note, Fantasia didn’t really have much of a story to translate into the game, at least in my memory, so that world gets a pass too. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, on the other hand, is probably my favorite Disney movie, and so I’m a little less lenient on how its story is told in the game. Honestly, I felt like it wasn’t the best adaptation. Having seen the movie, I understood what was happening in the cut scenes, but I got the feeling that if someone hadn’t seen Hunchback, they likely would’ve had a harder time with it. There are a couple of scenes towards the end of the world that seems to come out of nowhere in this game, though it made sense when seen in the movie. I thought that The Grid, based off of Tron: Legacy, however, did a good job of adapting that movie in Riku’s story. And anyone who’s seen Legacy and played Kingdom Hearts II can probably make a guess as to what happens in Sora’s story, and I thought that was done well also. The overarching story is rather complex, taking in a lot of elements from earlier titles, likely in an attempt to show how everything is wrapping up in time for the Grand Finale in Kingdom Hearts III. However, the game does include a ’Chronicles’ feature, providing summaries of the other Kingdom Hearts games as they become relevant to the plot. For that reason as well as the quality of the gameplay, I’d say that, though this is one of the more complicated stories in the series, it’s also probably a good jumping-in point for anyone interested in checking out this series.

One other thing I should mention is the Flick Rush minigame. In this game, you take the three Spirits that currently form your party and have them compete against three other Spirits either controlled by the AI or by another player over local wireless. Each Spirit has 15 cards, which can be used to heal, attack, etc. by flicking them upwards on the touch screen, or to defend against enemy attacks by flicking them downwards. Each card has a numeric value. You can add card values together by quickly flicking multiple cards, adding their value to the first card flicked. If your card has a higher value than your opponent’s, and their attack hits you, then they are stunned, leaving them vulnerable to another attack. The goal is to defeat all three of your opponent’s Spirits, and based on your performance, you are awarded some number of medals, which can be redeemed for items. This game is really addictive. On multiple occasions, I found myself having to say “Okay, keep playing until you lose, but then get back to the actual game.”

Now, I know I’ve said a lot of good things about this game, but I did have one problem with it: the Drop mechanic. As you play through the game, you have the option of switching between Sora and Riku at any time as they go through their independent stories. However, if you play as one character for a certain amount of time, the game will automatically switch you over to the other character. You can then immediately switch back to the character you were playing as, but as you fight Nightmares, you gain Dream Points, which you can spend upon Dropping to gain power-ups, like increases to your stats, making it easier to bond with your Spirits, and even making it take longer before you Drop again. These power-ups last until the next time you Drop, so if you keep switching back to the same character over and over, you’ll never be able to take advantage of this. I like this mechanic in the context of the story, since it encourages playing as both characters at roughly the same rate, but in terms of gameplay, I hate it. The Drop can happen at any time, so on multiple occasions, I had my character Drop IN THE MIDDLE OF A BOSS FIGHT. And then when I’d get back to that character, the boss would be back at full health, and I‘ve have to start all over again. Now, Square, I like you guys, you've made some great games, and if you want to have two protagonists in the same game, that’s fine. If you want their stories to be played simultaneously, that’s fine too. But if you want to force the player to switch characters at fixed intervals, DON’T ALLOW THE CHARACTERS TO SWITCH DURING BATTLES. Before this, I thought that nothing was more irritating than having to re-start a boss fight because the boss got off a cheap shot. Now, I realize this isn’t true; what’s more irritating is having to re-start a boss fight because the game decided ‘Oops, sorry, you took too long!’ Here's a crazy idea: maybe instead of having the characters switch after playing for a certain amount of time, how about having them switch based on how far they get in the story? So, you play as Riku for a while, get to cutscene, maybe have a little plot twist or cliff-hanger, and THEN switch to Sora until he gets to a good place in his story to stop for a while. That way, you have the characters proceeding through their stories at the same rate, and you don't have me needing to repeat boss fights because of a stupid mechanic.

But, in all honesty, the Drop mechanic was probably my only real problem with the game overall. Pretty much everything else that comes to mind, I either didn’t mind, or actively enjoyed.  So, all in all, I would say that Kingdom Hearts 3D is definitely worth picking up if you’ve enjoyed the other games in the series. If you’ve never played Kingdom Hearts before, then I would say that this would probably be a good place to start playing, as the Chronicles will fill you in on anything you’ve missed. However, if you have played Kingdom Hearts before, and just didn’t enjoy it, I doubt that this game will change your opinion of it.

So, this wraps up my first review. If you didn’t enjoy it, well, doesn’t matter to me all that much. However, if you did like it, feel free to leave a comment. Maybe an idea of what you think I could do better, maybe a suggestion for another game to review, maybe just praise of my glory, whatever. And be sure to keep an eye out for my next review, which should be up next week, where I'll be talking about Bastion.