I don't like Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy is a franchise that has been there throughout the ages of video games. It is a prolific series that has broken new ground, garnered thousands of fans worldwide, and is always hailed as having a tremendous story. And I don't understand why.

I can't exactly speak from experience as I've never played the exalted Final Fantasy VII. That seems to be the only one that matters anymore. People are so rabid about it that all Final Fantasy fans want is another one. Or, some kind of high definition remake. Again, I can't really speak from experience being that I've never played it, but was it really that good? Why can't you just bust out the old system and play that again. I'm sure the graphics haven't held up that well, but seeing an old game for me brings me straight back to when I played it back in the day.
What was so great about Final Fantasy VII? It has the most broken combat system like all of the current Final Fantasy games: The ATB system. What does that even stand for? I think it's Attack Time Based System... more like Attack Time-based Bullshit system if you ask me. The ATB system works as follows: enter battle, wait.... There is your first problem right there. The game forces the player to wait. Most, if not every other game let's you get right into the battle with a turn based battle system. There is nothing wrong with this. There was nothing broken with the turn based thing, so why change it? Why Square Enix, why? Pokemon, which if I'm honest is probably the only other Japanese RPG that I've ever played, allows me to get into a battle, and immediately make my decision. It may not be my Pokemon that goes first, but I have still chosen my next move. Back to the ATB system... after waiting for your gage to fill up, then, THEN, I get to scroll through my options. This is an RPG, people! I'm going to have a mage type character in my party that knows loads of spells, and I as the player may not know all of them. So, the game forces you to scroll through a novels worth of pages filled with spells, WHILE THE TIMER IS STILL GOING. That's right. You are open to attack. This is straight up punishing gameplay. The time does not pause while I scroll through my menus, it keeps on ticking away. This whole time based system becomes worse in different ways, but I'll go into that more. Either way, this gameplay system is completely broken. I should be able to sort through the spells and abilities that my character has, no matter how many, without having to race the clock. Have you ever taken a really hard test at school, and they put a time limit on it that you knew wasn't enough. That is every single battle with every Final Fantasy game with the ATB system. I don't know what they were thinking over at Square Enix. It doesn't make the battles more realistic, it doesn't make the battles more visceral, it doesn't make the battles more intense. The only purpose that the ATB system seems to serve is to frustrate the hell out of me. The whole of the battle systems, throughout every Final Fantasy game is a farce!

Example: Final Fantasy IV, for the Nintendo DS.

I was really excited to play this game. I bought it on a whim after seeing a Final Fantasy concert. That sounds strange, given how much I hate the series, but watch the old G4tv episode of Icons focusing on Nobuo Uematsu, the composer of the Final Fantasy games, and you'll understand why I love the music and hate the games. Final Fantasy IV has the ATB system, and was completely remade to have 3D graphics and even have voice acting. I haven't played the original Final Fantasy IV, though I'm sure that it didn't have the ATB system. The NES was before that time. There are some interesting things to the battle system that could have had some potential... except for the fact that it is squandered by the battle system itself. In FF IV for the DS, I can choose the order in which my party is arranged. Cool! I thought to myself, that way I can have my tank up front to absorb all of the damage while my fragile characters can hang out around back and launch spells and heal the tank. NOPE.

I usually take my DS to the laundromat to help pass the time. Wanting to get more into my DS as a platform that I spend more time with, I thought Final Fantasy IV would be a good place to start. I was wrong. At first, I wasn't. I was getting the hang of the system, and picking up new, and awesome characters who changed up gameplay and made the game exciting. However, due to the story taking my main character to places that separated me from those new and exciting characters, I got stuck, on top of a mountain with under leveled characters. Here's another reason why I hate, absolutely hate, Final Fantasy games. The main characters. As of late the characters of Final Fantasy games have been lack-luster, run of the mill, emotionally dead, or repressed, cardboard cutouts of human beings. The depth of the main characters are terrible, and the side characters that you come across aren't much better. However, being that these are side characters, and they only help out in the party all the time, apparently these people do not matter to the writers of Final Fantasy. So players are forced to hang around these awful characters, and because of their time with these characters, they are much stronger than the other members of the party. This creates an imbalance. A nonsensical imbalance that ends up breaking the game. Generally in a Final Fantasy game, the main character will be miles ahead of the other characters in the party, and that forces the player to grind, and level the other characters who will never catch up BECAUSE THE MAIN CHARACTER IS IN THAT PARTY! He's gaining experience too! He's leveling up and maintaining his status as the strongest character. This makes no sense! Where's the balance?! Bioware RPGs are brilliant because of one simple concept: The Experience Bank. This allows players to use characters that they wouldn't often use because they are under leveled, and bringing said characters up to the player level.

So, there I am, on top of a mountain with my underleveled characters facing down a boss. This boss can take down my underleveled characters in one to two hits. When I have the opportunity to revive my characters with a Phoenix Down, the action goes completely wasted. Reason being, is that the character that I have just revived hasn't had a chance to heal himself, and it is the other characters turn. I put my fragile mage in the back, so that he wouldn't take damage. So that the enemy would attack my Tank first, and NOT my support. This doesn't matter. The whole arrangement of characters, does not matter in the game of Final Fantasy. Chess has the pawns in front, so that they can run interference. They are not the strongest pieces, but they can get in the way, and not much is lost when they go down. Much like the hit points of my Tank. However! Being that the enemy can choose whomever it wants to attack, it decides to take down the weakest of my characters. Which happens to be my recently resurrected mage. I'm not complaining about the Phoenix Down, and how it doesn't revive my character to it's full health, but the brokenness of the combat system.

How am I supposed to get past this greater evil? Hmmm? Grinding. That's what I am supposed to do. Take the time, out of my day, out of my experience, to just straight level. That is all. There is no point. There is no training montage. There is no anything. It is just to get stronger. The reason that Final Fantasy, along with a bevvy of other Japanese RPGs, fail, is because of it's grinding. Grinding breaks up the pace in the worst way. Never in a story will you hear about the heroes aimlessly wandering the landscape, killing as many creatures as possible to get stronger. This kind of thing is left up to the back story.

There is a time and place for training. Usually, at the beginning of the story, or the whole story where the hero is working his way up to the final fight. Say, in Percy Jackson. There is a need for some kind of explanation of training. Percy Jackson is an ordinary person, in extraordinary circumstances. He needs to know about the new world that he has just entered into. Harry Potter needs training as a wizard, so that he can eventually face his destiny to defeat Voldermort. Rocky Balboa needs to train endlessly so that he can come out of retirement and fight Mr. T. These are all necessary circumstances where a character needs development in that specific area. Characters in Final Fantasy should not have to level grind in order to progress. These characters are already adventurers. Final Fantasy IV, has players taking control of Cecil, a knight. A knight who is a captain, of his own armada, and who is widely regarded among his colleagues as the best, in the worlds strongest of armies. There is no reason, as to why this character should need to level grind. The other characters as well, should not need to level grind. Usually, they are in the same profession, or have been training their entire lives, to become what they are. The fragile mages that I kept in the back row, were but children. However, they too, were widely regarded as extremely talented individuals for their age. While I admit that they would need to undergo more training, before setting off on a quest to save the world. These two characters should be able to grow through their time on this adventure.

Grinding breaks games. This concept in games brings games to a tedious halt. An excuse that I've heard that was for grinding was that it extends the life of their game. "More bang for your buck" as they say. But where's the bang if it's just a dull roar, suppressed by the tedium of doing the same stuff over and over again? What about the story, or character development, or anything? There is nothing that transpires. The characters only get stronger in level, but I feel as though no progress has been made. I didn't advance through the story, I didn't explore a new area, I just ran in circles for an ungodly amount of time, where all I did, was murder innocent creature protecting their territory from a band of jackasses wanting to get stronger.

Dragon Ball Z has more engaging training sessions than this. Somehow, someway, the heroes of the show hear about an oncoming evil that is stronger than they have ever faced before, so they should get stronger so that they can defeat it. It's the same situation as Rocky, but on a more ridiculous level. In Final Fantasy, each character is in some way, already quite the adventurer and qualified to take on most challenges. Though, none of the characters ever charge themselves with the task of being the planets protectors. They were chosen, seemingly at random, to save the earth, or whatever planet they exist on. If they truly are the chosen ones, then by whatever divine power that exists within those societies, or whatever powers that chose them, should help them along in some way by bestowing upon them some kind of sacred power of some sort. There should be challenge in the game, but not punishment. Not forcing the player to spend hours and hours, doing nothing but pouring time into leveling.

Now, in my experience, side quests are hard to come by in a Final Fantasy game. They are usually too difficult for my low level characters, and when my character becomes strong enough, my supports are usually too weak. Leveling should be rewarded throughout the game, at a steady pace, that makes those levels feel earned, and not given freely. The player should have to accomplish great tasks to get those levels. Again, going back to Bioware RPGs, specifically Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Leveling feels earned. Players can go through the main story quests only, and feel sufficiently powerful, even though, they haven't reached their full level cap. The challenge of the game adapts to the player level, and keeps a constant challenge for the player. There is grinding in Kotor, but it is cleverly masked by the numerous amounts of side quests, that are both interesting and engaging. The variety of ways that you can deal with these quests make them all the better. It may be something as simple as a delivery quests, but players have the choice to not deliver that item, sell it and make a pretty penny rather than doing as they were told and taking home a small profit. It could even be an assassination mission. Players can undergo the guise of a bad guy, find their mark, and tell them to get out of town because there is a bounty on their head. There is nothing like this in Final Fantasy. It is simply: find quest, complete quest. No option. No moral choice. No freedom.

Linearity is not a bad thing, but it can kill games. When the freedom that the player has is to choose what character to level up, with a certain materia or guardian force, or when the choice is to either flank left or flank right, there is no choice. There is no freedom in a game like that.

At least the music is nice...

RE: Mobile Games

Today I went to Comcast to turn in my Internet equipment from them, and tell them that I was breaking up with them. I actually said that by the way. Anyhow, the place was more like the DMV than the last time that I visited. So, I took my number and sat down. Not expecting it to be this busy, I pulled out my phone and started to play one of the games on it to pass the time.

Infinity Blade II was the game. I recently downloaded on account of it being completely free the other day. Hooray for reasons!!! The game is good. Like, really good. I was having fun. Produced by Epic Games, creators of the Gears of War Franchise,l developed by Chair, creators of Shadow Complex for the XBLA, and running on the Unreal Engine, Infinity Blade II is a full-blown, all out, no holds bar, game. This is a great thing. Though, it may be just a rare gem in the rough of Angry Birds knock-offs. It is refreshing to see a game, that I actually kind of lost time in on my phone.

If I wasn't at the DMV, I mean Comcast, I would have played for longer... and with the sound on.

Infinity Blade II is a sword fighting game. Players go from one fight to the next, as opponents literally line up to face you. I didn't say that this game was deep. That being said, I was completely lost in the visuals of this game. I was really surprised and impressed by the gorgeous visuals in this game. Every screen in between fights is an impressive vista that you can just sit back and admire.

If there are more games like Infinity Blade out there, then I could really see the mobile phone industry taking up hardcore gaming. There are hardcore games that are already out there for the handheld market (DS and PS Vita), so why not the phone? It can obviously run a game with the Unreal Engine on it and make it look good, and the touch screens and gyrometers in the phones lend themselves to new and innovative control schemes....

Well, quite simply... Ain't nobody got time for that. "Hardcore" games, I hate that term, take time, and investment. At least for me, anyhow. The "hardcore" audience, as the industry likes to label us, play games on a regular basis. We analyze and criticize the games that we play. We invest ourselves into these worlds that these games create. We can't get invested in something like Angry Birds, or Cut the Rope, because there is nothing to get invested in. On the other hand we have games like Mass Effect, Halo, Jet Grind Radio, Street Fighter, Civilization, and the list goes on and on. I know that it's comparing apples to oranges, and each person is entitled to their own opinion, but I think that there could be a chance for a hardcore mobile market.

Ummmm.... Ok, so I may have inadvertently lied...

So, my last post here was about how I don't seem to have time for video games anymore. Well.... That's not entirely true... apparently...

I had the past two days off. What did I do wit them? I played video games. Lots, and lots of games. I broke out the old Sega Dreamcast and played the games that I recently bought at a used game store. Then I played some League of Legends on my new gaming laptop (THANKS MOM). The next day, after church service, I came home, and played more video games. Then my brother came over and played the new Borderlands 2 DLC, which is superb by the way.

I pretty much did nothing all weekend, a weekend that was much needed, but play video games. I guess that I do have the time for video games, I just have to look for it... and skip on going to the gym....

Oh myy... How time has flied...

Wow, it's been a really long time since I've decided to update this blog. Or rather, I just haven't had the time to do so. So many things in life have just gotten in the way. I currently have my job which is having me work quite a lot, which is good because I like to have money to do things like pay bills. Then I decided to join a gym to get in shape because my job makes me feel lazy, what with just sitting there all day. Though, to be honest, I haven't gone to the gym that often as of late, and the monthly membership fee is turning into something of a fat tax. And now, I've gotten the brilliant notion to have a social life on top of all of this, which leaves me little time at all for video games. This makes me sad. I love video games. I think they're pretty great, and if I don't have time for them, well then, what's the point?

The other night I got a chance to play some good ol' Mass Effect 3 multiplayer with my good friend, and that was fun. It had been such a long time since I've sat down to really engage in a game of anything that I had a blast. I'm not saying that ME 3 multi isn't fun, it's just that I long for an experience to get lost in. Recently I bought, played, and beat The Last of Us. The game took me the weekend to get through, and I'll most likely get around to playing it again, but it'll be a while before I do so. Especially because it was not that long ago that it came out. It's like a movie. You don't watch a movie, finish it, then watch it again. You talk about it with your friends and tell them to go see it, or stay away from it, depending on your opinion of the movie. Either way, I need to find a way to fit games back into my life.

There are the "casual" games that people play on their phones and the like, but I'm not quite a big fan of those games. It's fine if you are, but playing those just makes me feel petty. You see, I've tackled games like Shadow of the Colossus, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of time. These are some of the games that I hold as a gold standard. Lately I haven't found a game that engages me the way that those games do. To be honest, I don't think that any game on my phone will ever accomplish this magnificent feat.

Games like Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, and Tiny Wings, to me, are all just time wasters. Those games you play when you're bored and want to pass the time. You don't get any kind of gratification from playing those games. These games have no depth, no substance, nothing to them. I'm comparing apples to oranges here, but I just haven't sat down to really engage in a video game for a long time. I like to engage in a video game and really put time into it. And these time wasters just help me get rid of time. I don't just lose it like I do with a game like Mass Effect.

Games like World of Warcraft, Mass Effect, Skyrim, or any other kind of Role Playing Game get their players hooked. The players get lost in their games, and as a result, they lose a lot of time. One does not simply play Skyrim for "a little bit". That's just not how it works.

I should play some more Skyrim. It's been a long time since I've sat down to play that. I miss my high elf mage. She kicks butt....

But, this all seems to stem from one thing in particular.... I'm an adult. This sucks. I can't have fun anymore. I've got responsibilities. To people. To my job. to the bills that I have to pay. Meanwhile my games sit handsomely on my shelf collecting dust. That is not what I intended for them. I want to play them. All of them! All the time! But I can't. I just don't have the time. But after a long, boring day at work, streaming a video is much easier than fully engaging and immersing myself in a video game. It's pretty easy for me to get lost in a game, but when I'm exhausted, that's a different story.

There's nothing wrong with games like Angry Birds and the like, I just find those games lacking in depth. The portable platform of gaming makes it somewhat difficult for me to be consumed in. Normally I consider my Nintendo DS to be my roadtrip console, however due to the aforementioned adulthood which I have recently acquired, the DS is now my laundromat console. Wanting to go for something a bit more deep than Tetris, I chose Final Fantasy IV. The Final Fantasy series is known for it's characters, story, music, and shitty battle system. I don't know what they're talking about when it comes to the story and characters, most Final Fantasy games have flat, uninteresting characters that I don't empathize with at all, but the music is great. Fantastic even. Bad jokes aside, I've put a few hours into Final Fantasy IV. I can't say that I've really enjoyed them though. I don't like Final Fantasy games to begin with, and it's difficult to focus when I have to keep track of time and check when the wash cycle is done. Even when I try to play the game at home, when I don't have any kind of distraction, I just can't get into a DS game.

Though, I feel like this is my issue. I know plenty of people who's choice of gaming platform is the portable, whether Nintendo, Sony, or their phone. There are certainly some great games on those platforms, and not everyone has the time to get invested in story, character, gameplay and the like. Sometimes, it just isn't feasible to be a gamer.