The Guided Fate Paradox EU Box Art

Three years after Nippon Ichi Software released Z.H.P. Unlosing Ranger VS Darkdeath Evilman, a spiritual successor has arrived to continue the NISA brand of rogue-likes. The Guided Fate Paradox is a PlayStation 3 improvement of the original, much like Legasista was a console version of the PSP game Cladun. While Legasista tried to change as little as possible for the move to console, The Guided Fate Paradox has had a number of improvements made to the game while sticking close to the formula that worked for Z.H.P.

So, the question is; why did NISA change up the setting of The Guided Fate Paradox? Well, Z.H.P.‘s story was based on 1980′s superheroes, something that in Japan is quite niche. It is doubtful that even outside Japan, even with the cult status that some of the older movies have, the appeal just may not have been there for another run at a similar story. Instead, what we have is a story about a boy who has the power to change the fate of people who have a wish that needs granting.

Renya Kagurazaka was a student with no real luck in life, until the day he won a lottery held in a shopping hall. His prize? He became God. This is no Jim Carrey movie where the protagonist can get up to random hijinx, instead Renya must fulfill God’s duties. This is far easier than it sounds though, as the main task is listening to and helping the millions of wishes that are made across the world. To speed up this process, the Fate Revolution Circuit is used to find wishes that are suitable for the amount of job experience the current God has. The current God? Yes, there have been others before Renya, because if he cannot complete a wish, he will be consumed.

This tame compared to other quotes I could have taken.

Joining Renya in his new role are a cast of wacky characters including the new angel who inadvertently speaks a lot of innuendo, a veteran angel who would like nothing more that to perform carnal acts on the new God’s body, and other servants who seem to know more than they let on. The people Renya must help have a uniqueness to them as well. The first person requiring assistance is none other that Cinderella herself, and Renya faces a tough choice; will helping Cinderella forever change her story? NISA needed a strong first mission like this or else they may have had trouble convincing people to carry on the game. How can you convince an audience that somebodies fate has been changed unless they already know what the outcome should be?

The Guided Fate Paradox is a rogue-like, but there is some character progression the carries between trips in the Fate Revolution Circuit. Much like Azure Dreams, any items held when exiting a dungeon can be kept and sold, or stored and used later, and death removes all items from the held inventory. Each trip into a dungeon starts the player back at level one. At the end of a dungeon the player’s base stats increase based on the amount of levels gained while in the dungeon, making them slightly more powerful on subsequent runs. Rather than adding a set number of stats to a character, equipment increases certain stats by a percentage.

Equipment has a form of experience as well, except that exiting a dungeon does not wipe that progress. When an item reaches maximum experience it gets worse, but a blacksmith can improve any equipment at max experience so that it is better than before. This can be repeated over and over, at least until a player dies and loses everything they are carrying. Each time a piece of equipment is improved, the player gains a tile to place on a board called the Divinagram. The tile further increases a stat, which stat depends of the type of gear that was improved. Later on, holy symbols can be placed on the Divinagram that give the player new skills and abilities.

Enemies respawn as time passes.

Dungeon runs are usually quick affairs that find the player searching for the exit on each floor. Dungeons are not very large, and each floor only takes a few minutes to clear. Enemies an not very varied in the dungeons, but even early on can cause some nasty status effects. Health and skill points restore naturally over time as the player walks around, though endurance diminishes over time as well. Time can be forced to move while a player stands still so that they can heal, but doing so will mean a player will need to find food. Starvation costs health each ‘turn’ and can bring an otherwise successful run to an abrupt end.

The graphics in The Guided Fate Paradox look like they could have come out of Disgaea D2. This is not surprising considering the same team worked on both games. The results show in the way characters move, and also their facial expressions. The animators have had to be little more restrained this time around though, as The Guided Fate Paradox does not have the crazy over-the-top moves usually seen in the Disgaea series. The musical is still quite catchy, but does not have many memorable pieces to it. A nice feature is that the music in the base can be changed, and new tracks can be unlocked later on.

The Guided Fate Paradox is a game that would seem more at home on the Vita or similar mobile devices. The ability to suspend the game between dungeon floors is useful, but can break up the story a little if the game is not resumed soon after. Despite all the angels and the player taking on the role of God, there are very few overtly religious themes in the game, much like in the Disgaea series. Fans of Z.H.P. will find themselves at home with familiar mechanics, as will enthusiasts of NIS’s other works. Newcomers may think the game is rather simple on the surface, but would need to stick around to find the depth in the games systems.

Lost Odyssey‘s protagonist, Kaim, is one of my favorite characters in an RPG.

With the new consoles by Microsoft and Sony coming around the corner any moment now, and thus the true start to the next console generation, I began to think back on what is soon to become the previous generation. Considering my previous article that looked back on the GameCube, I thought I would take the time to do a similar retrospective on the consoles of this closing generation. And so, the Xbox 360:

Microsoft’s console was the first out the gate this generation, alone in the market for a full year, and this was perhaps the biggest asset to the console throughout its lifetime. In the previous generation, the original Xbox struggled alongside the GameCube to overcome the massive success of the PlayStation 2. But with a crucial head start, the Xbox 360 went a long way in closing that gap. Launch lineups being what they are, the 360 did not come down the pike with too many amazing titles, instead it was the feature-set of the console that pushed software sales. The first HD console on the market, and with no alternatives for a year, was an enticing buy for many gamers. Though I held out for a while, I would eventually get the system in about 2007. Since this was before I owned a gaming PC, the 360 would become my first HD gaming experience, indeed it was the first thing I bought an HDMI cable for. The uptick in graphical quality seemed to make everything amazing and new, at least for a time. Faces and environments had detail I thought were only possible in FMVs, and the menus and HUD were all so crisp and sharp. It made going back to SD pretty difficult.

In 2007 I made my console purchase, and it was no coincidence I held out until that year specifically. In that early part of the console’s lifespan there released a small clutch of very enticing RPGs. With those games on the market, and as a Wii owner still starved for proper RPG content, I figured the time was right to make the next console purchase. In fact, at the beginning of this generation I had planned to own all three consoles so that no exclusive would pass me by, and so my 360 was pretty much an inevitability.

The game I played when I took the system home, the game for which I still keep my current 360 at hand just in case, was Mistwalker and Hironobu Sakaguchi’s outstanding Lost Odyssey. The game is a turn based masterpiece with a compelling, moving story and an equally stellar soundtrack. It features a fun battle system with enough little wrinkles in it to keep it from being just another turn based RPG. It is also not an easy game, the very first boss is actually one of the harder ones. The characters in the game are mostly well defined, but the protagonist, Kaim, is a very intriguing subject. He is an immortal, he never dies or even ages. And rather immediately the game confronts the player with the issues of outliving loved ones, being shunned from society, and feeling like an outsider in the world. The plot only thickens from there as Kaim learns more about his past, meets others like him, and relives locked away memories through the remarkable dream sequences shown to the player in a short story format. These stories, written by renowned author Kiyoshi Shigematsu, add an amazing and often deeply moving insight into Kaim’s character throughout the game. I even recommend looking up these stories, entitled “A Thousand Years of Dreams”, as they make for good reading all on their own.

Commander Shepard can be whoever you want him to be.

The other major software release in 2007, one more indicative of the system’s future, was the very ambitious Mass Effect. A Western RPG by Bioware, this game would go on to help popularize story telling mechanics like multiple and dynamic dialogue options, permanent consequences for picking some of those options and the Paragon/Renegade morality system of good and bad character development. These concepts were not founded in Mass Effect but they were certainly helped to the fore by this game. And though some of these systems have gone full circle, now considered to be overused and shallow, like the morality system, they were launched into mainstream usage in no small part by this game. As a scifi “space opera” Mass Effect looked to scratch that itch that high fantasy RPGs like Elder Scrolls could not reach. This game features a realtime combat system and plays similar to a first person shooter, though it is littered the various RPG trappings of weapon power ratings, character classes and abilities. The real draw, however, was always the characterization and story. As Commander Shepard, a person whose appearance and gender can be customized, the player goes around the various planets and interacts with NPCs. These interactions help shape the direction of the story and the moral composition of the player’s own Commander Shepard, with many of the conversations potentially opening or closing routes to different sidequests. For many, including myself, it was the first time in a game where the dialogue forced me to pay attention and consider my responses. And often I would attempt to do so in-character, and with such a compulsion lay the core of Mass Effect‘s initial appeal.

No console is without its downsides, and the 360 has many. Most famous among them was the abhorrent failure rate of the console, with nearly all launch units eventually succumbing to overheating issues. A propensity to scratch discs was also no help to the image of the system, and yet it managed to soldier on through these remarkable defects. Aside from the hardware problems, the 360 would also see issues with its software. I mentioned that in 2007 there seemed to be a focus on RPGs, even JRPGs, on the console and yet that focus would dwindle before long. Once Sony got back into its groove it seemed Microsoft just gave up on courting any other consumer aside from Madden or Call of Duty fanatics. As a result any Japanese flavor the system could have hoped to pick up was pretty well lost by the middle of the system’s lifetime. And though I do appreciate aspects of both Western and Japanese game design, as an old Nintendo fan I do tend to favor the quirkier and less dude-bro-y Eastern game titles. And so, though the 360 was my first HD console to get a spot in my console lineup it would also become the first to fall into disuse. It still sits in its spot, but its replacement, the PlayStation 3, is the one that is actually plugged in. More on that next week.

What are your experiences with the predecessor to the coming Xbone? Did you also find the system worthy of your hard earned money only to feel less interested as time went on? Maybe you never bought one? Or maybe you really like what the system has to offer. For as much as some of its exclusives might get flogged around here, I have found myself enjoying time with the likes of Gears of War or one of the Modern Warfare entries. Fear not and make your comments regarding your 360 experiences (or lack thereof) below, I shall not judge! (That is Lusi’s job)

Prime World: Defenders is available on Steam from June 5th.

Prime World: Defenders was developed by Nival using assets from Prime World, another game of theirs currently in development. As the name suggests, Defenders is a top-down tower defence game in which the objective is to eliminate all the enemy forces before they reach their objective. Their objective is either entering the players base or stealing prime, a prized resource in Prime World. Defenders does little to change the fundamental way the genre works, but instead tries to blend collectable card game and RPG mechanics into the title.

The player begins with a single card, the Wooden Tower. The first few mission explain how the different types of towers work, while expanding the players selection of cards with rewards from battle. The fifth battle instructs the player to use all their knowledge to stop the first boss from stealing all their Prime. It is here that grinding, the staple of the RPG genre is introduced. Each level gets progressively harder and the player must level up their towers to remain competitive. This is done by fusing unwanted towers into one another, destroying the fusion material, but giving permanent stat increases to the fused tower.

For each story mission a player must complete, there are three randomly generated maps also on offer ranging in difficulty from easy to hard. Taking on the harder missions pits the player against stronger enemies, more waves, and fewer open spaces to place towers on the map. The upside though is that the rewards are higher. After each mission the player is shown five random cards (harder missions have a better selection). After being flipped face down and shuffled about, the player selects one to keep. More cards to be chosen, but each additional selection costs the player a progressively increasing amount of silver, the games basic currency earned from missions.

Collecting and upgrading cards brings a welcome change to clearing map after map.

After the fifth mission, the player is freed from the tutorials and the rest of the games mechanics are opened to them. First there is ‘evolution’. In the same way that fusing increase the stats of a tower, evolution does the same but requires the player have two of the same cards. The key difference here is that evolution does not increase the cards level, instead it allows the player to power up a tower during a mission but can only be used on an individual card twice.

Each tower has a base cost to place. If a player places many of a single type of tower in a mission it becomes more expensive. Powering up a tower is more efficient as the player only needs to pay the base cost to double a towers damage. If a player has evolved a card twice, a tower maybe powered up a second time for double its base cost resulting in a tower that is four times as powerful. Some locations on the field give buffs to towers placed on them, so a fully powered tower that is buffed soon becomes a force to be reckoned with.

The last mechanic opened to the player is the shop. Here a player can spend excess silver on addition basic cards, with a small chance to get a rarer card. Players can be guaranteed to receive rare cards if they purchase higher tier card packs, but these cost gold stars. Up to three Gold stars can be earned from each mission depending on how much life a player lost during it. With only the twenty-three story missions in the game awarding gold stars to a player, they become a very limited resource. Thankfully, they can rarely be found as one of the five random cards a player could receive after completing any mission.

Most maps have a single lane or a shortcut that can be opened if a player is not careful.

The dialogue in Defenders is fully voice acted, whether it is during missions or the comic book style cut scenes that accompany many of the story missions. While these are not terrible, at times it can seem like the voice actors were reading the line off a sheet of paper during their performance. It can be distracting at times, but it is nice to have plenty of dialogue througout the game.

All the visuals in Defenders Are bright and shiny. Paths that enemies will take are shown on the field. Even if there are multiple paths open to them, a player can see what route will be taken and can plan accordingly. Sadly, the only graphical option open to the player is the resolution size. Players with lower spec computers should ensure that their computers are suitable for the game. The number of maps available to random missions is limited by a players progress through the story. Early on this means there is very little variety on offer.

Prime World: Defenders is a game that will appeal to MMO fans. Many of the same mechanics are found in this single player game and can occupy attention for large periods of time without any real story progress being made. A daily reward is offered to players to keep them returning and missions take very little time to complete, so the game can be enjoyed infrequently between other titles. Prime World: Defenders is released on June 5th, but purchasing now on steam will give players access to the beta.

Dragon Fantasy

Anybody who grew up in the era when Nintendo dominated the console market will have at least seen a few of the classic RPGs. Dragon Fantasy looks like a game from yesteryear, but adds modern functionality and a good helping of humor. Scattered throughout the game are many references to pop culture and downright awful (but funny) puns. Muteki Corporation know their target audience and have done everything in their power to make this game appeal to them.

The game is divided up into four chapters. Although the first is the main quest, a player has the option of starting on any chapter they choose. The third chapter leads into the next game, while the other two are fun side quests that add to the overall story of the game. The fourth chapter is inspired by Minecraft and has unique features not found in the other three chapters. As the name implies, this is the first game in a series and the sequel is already in the works.

The story begins with a mag named Ogden. Thirty years ago he rescued Princess Becca from a dragon, and in doing so lost all his hair. Today he is her personal bodyguard, but does little more than rescue cats from trees. On the day that Becca, now a Queen, prepares to crown her son on his twenty-fifth birthday, a group of monsters show up to halt proceedings. Prince Marlon is abducted by a Dark Knight who flees through a portal, closely followed by Ogden. Appearing in the middle of nowhere with no trace of the Prince or the Dark Knight to be found, Ogden begins his quest to rescue the Prince.

Battles can be quite close matched without a little grinding.

The gameplay is what could be expected of an old-school RPG. Towns, dungeons and the overworld are all viewed from a top down perspective. Exploration outside of town leads to random encounters with enemies. The encounter rate is quite high, and healing is required after each fight but the game feels challenging rather than frustrating. Thankfully Ogden comes with plenty of healing magic to cure his wounds. There are no maps to guide players through dungeons, though each is short enough that this does not cause problems. The only real downside is a lack of a dash button to move quicker. Equipping new items is quite simple, with each piece showing the difference in attack and defense. When purchasing new items, the option is given to automatically equip the item. This is refreshing for an old-school game.

The enemy design in the game really shines through. While there are the usual palette swaps found later on, each enemy has unique combat text that will set the aside from similar sprites. This is a game that features an Obligatory Ork who is obliged to attack Ogden. Only by defeating the enemy can his compulsion be ended. Commands in battle are what would be expected of any RPG and little strategy is involved. The games does require some grinding at points which can get a little repetitive at times. Thankfully the game was patched not long after launch to increase the hit rate of attacks, as before a few rounds could go by without a player or an enemy being able to land a blow.

The PlayStation 3 version of Dragon Fantasy allows the player to switch between 8 and 16-bit styles.

As Dragon Fantasy is an enhanced version of an iOS title, it also comes with enhanced graphics and sound. The iOS version was limited to 8-bit only, whereas the PlayStation 3/Vita copy also has a 16-bit mode. While both the 8-bit and 16-bit tunes fit the title well, the bleeps and bloops that accompany them can get irritating after a while. The graphical style can be switched any time the game menu can be accessed, though unless a player has greater connection with the NES era, it would be better just to leave the 16-bit mode on.

Dragon Fantasy is a game that will appeal to old-school gamers, though it may have some trouble capturing the imagination of a younger generation who might not get the majority of the references found throughout the game. The game has a cross save option, so Vita owners will be pleased that they can play the game on the go without buying it a second time. The game takes roughly twenty hours to complete, but anybody used to playing classic RPGs will be able complete it sooner.

FUS RO DAH!

This writer will admit that it was incredibly hard to remain objective for this review, for a reason that may be quite unpopular on this site in fact: Emmori loves Western RPGs more than their Japanese cousins, at least for the past few generations of consoles. This could be blamed on any number of reasons: art design differences, storytelling structure, characterization, a dislike of grinding, or maybe simply because of a crippling case of ethnocentrism. Games like Mass Effect and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic have always appealed to this writer more than game series such as Final Fantasy and Disgaea ever could. But despite all of this, it may make for a better review. After all, what better to invoke higher standards of criticism than a game that is hyped to set new standards in a favored genre?

The subject of hype, of course, being Betheseda Game Studios’ newest addition to the infamous Elder Scrolls saga: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Set in the titular land of Skyrim 200 years after the events of the previous game (The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion) the game focuses on the player-named main character, a fugitive that has been sentenced to death amidst a civil war that engulfs the land. After the player’s execution is interrupted by a semi-convenient attack on the town by a dragon, the player escapes and make his way into the open world of Skyrim, where his adventure unfolds. The player soon learns that their character is a mythic being known as the “Dragonborn”: the ultimate dragonslayer, and prophecized savior of the world. Although the main plot is indeed interesting enough to warrant playing through, the game (like its predecessors) does not make the player focus on or even pay attention to the main storyline. The game is a giant, open sandbox with a huge number of quests and places to explore, some of which come with their own sets of minor plots and story archs.

The player-made Dragonborn himself (or herself) is not characterized by then game. Rather, it is up to the player to decide how the voiceless Dragonborn reacts to a situation or approaches a problem. Other characters are different, however. Although the voice acting is perhaps the best it has been in an Elder Scrolls game, Skyrim‘s non-player characters all suffer from somewhat wooden voice acting, which is especially noticeable in extreme situations. This occasionally leads to somewhat humorous, yet flow-breaking moments; villagers may find themselves locked in a life-or-death battle with a dragon and emerge victorious, but with bodies of their friends strewn about, but will show no sign of worry or anguish – except for when they stop to look at and ponder the bodies.

Ice trolls are among the many dangers player will face.

The gameplay of Skyrim has been drastically improved and evolved since Oblivion. Though many of the series’ classic features–such as leveling individual skills to level up, enemies that grow stronger as the player does, and crafting and improving equipment–make a return, Skyrim has streamlined combat and gameplay to remove unnecessary features, making way for new and interesting features. Many skill trees have been consolidated and combined, so that making a character with a certain set of skills is easier. Gear no longer becomes damage with use, alleviating the need to repair equipment at annoying intervals. Playing the game in a third-person view, as opposed to the classic first-person view, has been altered and improved as to be useful. Skyrim has also let players fully customize their character by removing classes from the game, no longer punishing characters for choosing a race or trying to level a skill that is counter-intuitive to a class’s purpose. The game also features the addition of perks that improve abilities and allow a character to specialize even further in one or several character directions, no doubt borrowed from Bethesda’s previous Elder Scrolls-eque Fallout series. And finally, the inclusion of giving player the ability to assign different commands and items to separate hands allows players to experiment with and develop strategies and playstyles, such as allowing the player to wield two spells, a sword and shield, two weapons, or any combination of these. There are many bugs and glitches in the game, but few detract from the experience of the game to call it a problem. Combat feels much more fluid in Skyrim than than ever, and as such the gameplay is, in this reviewer’s opinion, the best in the Elder Scrolls series to date.

These giants do not like it when others mess with their herds of mammoths.

As a primarily open-ended RPG, one should hope that Skyrim‘s environments should be beautiful and wondrous to look at. And like its predecessor Oblivion, the land of Skyrim is indeed marvelous. For a game set in a wintry, harsh landscape, Skyrim is incredibly detailed and verdant, with several areas that are distinct in atmosphere. Even the dungeons the player must traverse are creepy and moody, with dim illumination and ancient-looking decor that dot the dangerous depths of caverns and fortresses. The game’s soundtrack is subtle and rarely calls attention to itself, only helping to strengthen the mood; triumphant music plays when a discovery is found or a level is gained, calm music plays in peaceful towns, and fast-paced war-drums play whenever an enemy charges or a dragon roars in the distance. Players may rarely wish to utilize the game’s fast-travel system, so that they may explore and take in the landscape of Skyrim fully.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is an excellent game and players should feel excellent for playing it. It is a big, beautiful world filled with enough things to do to keep even the most completionistic of gamers occupied and entertained for a very long time. It is definitely worth a purchase, especially for those with little to no experience with the Elder Scrolls series that are interested in what all of the fuss is about. Skyrim is available now on Steam, as well as on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, so go, and play it with utmost confidence in your purchase!

Get ready for... something!

I like Fable. No, seriously. Playing the games has taught me that Fable and I have a lot in common.

Perhaps this requires some explanation. When I first started playing Fable it was back when I was in High School. I was in the midst of some sweeping changes during this time; while not making new friends and getting deeper and deeper into the niches I find myself in today, I started playing video games that had been different than the games I had grown up on, and many of them solidified the tastes I have today. Among them was Fable, a game that, like myself in adolescence, had identity issues. To this day, I am not sure what genre Fable and its sequels are supposed to be. Some may say that they can simply be called “action games,” but to me, that is far too vague.

The first Fable was purportedly an “action role-playing game”, but this is somewhat misleading. Despite the presence of typical RPG elements such as experience points, talent trees, and equipment with statistics, none of these usually mattered. A character could, with the right talent buys, have the same amount of health and damage resistance with a magic-user as they could with an armor-bound knight, mostly because the protection afforded by armor in the original Fable were minimal to the point of being cosmetic, and items whose descriptions told of bonuses or additional benefits (such as the Will User’s Hat) were outright false. Classic RPG tropes are played with in Fable as well, though mostly to show off the then-revolutionary alignment system the game had–which itself was easily exploited, making the alignment “roleplayed” in Fable pointless.

“Very well,” one might say, “it is just an action game with superficial RPG elements.” Not quite. Combat in Fable is a bit too simplistic for it to really work as a stand-alone action title. While it does make players think about using different strategies and abilities in any given situation and encourage players to have a versatile play-style, combat in Fable is almost always just limited to attacking the same enemies over and over again, then chugging down potions afterward. And potions in Fable are ridiculously easy to get. Thus, combat wound up being a chore to to do in order to reach the plot.

Truth be told, this specific quest made me smirk way more than it should have.

“Oh,” one replies sheepishly. “Maybe Fable could be considered a social Sim with Action-RPG elements?” No. Just, no. The way Fable handled NPC interactions, while novel in retrospect, is one of the most annoying aspects of the game. Marriage, romance, and interaction were boiled down to character statistics and liberal applications of poses and farts. While I understand that the limitations of the technology available to game designers of the time essentially prohibited in-depth character relationships with a potentially large number of NPCs, Lionhead’s immature approach to romance (and, unfortunately, sexuality), was largely mediocre and left a taste in the mouth of many a gamer.

Despite criticisms of its fans and nay-sayers alike, the games and expansions following the initial release of Fable have done little to help pinpoint the type of game the franchise was trying to become. Combat was further simplified and dumbed-down by taking away the chance of death entirely, on the assumption that scarring a character would give the player incentive to play cautiously (it did not), little has been done to deepen character relationships (even with quests and challenges that specifically call for romance and seduction), and Fables II and III essentially have RPG elements only in name.

But when all is said and done, what can be said about the genre of Fable‘s series? Calling Fable an “Action game” might be sufficient, on second thought; when taking the worst elements of many genres and cramming them together, the game will rarely be greater than or equal to the sum of its parts, and one need not be a mathematician to figure this out.

The M rating is partially thanks to Alice's outfit here.

Hello for another week, my Lusi-sprites. Today I come to you bearing the gift of a game review for a game that is not cute, and lacks any potato simulation. Shockingly this game is a game that I have played through many times despite the aforementioned lack of cuteness and potatoes. This game is none other than Shadow Hearts, a gothic-style RPG for the Playstation 2 circa 2001. Developed by Sacnoth and published by Aruze and Midway, Shadow Hearts is the sequel to the Playstation survival horror game Koudelka.

Shadow Hearts takes place in what is presumably an alternate reality. It is set in a version of the real world’s Asia and Europe in the early 1900s. War is looming upon multiple fronts in a sad mirror to our actual histories, with some demon-summoning and human sacrifice added. The game bravely skirts the line between being a period piece and a science-fiction drama. Much of the game takes place in recognizable locations, such as Shangai and London, but they are certainly not accurate depictions of the actual cities.

The story in Shadow Hearts revolves around Yuri Hyuga and Alice Elliot. Yuri is the quintessential anti-hero. He has a massive chip on his shoulder and a snarky, irreverent attitude to go with it. He meets up with Alice early in the game and finds himself donning the mantle of her protector. Alice’s father is a Priest, and Alice herself seems to be infused with holy power. She has incredible and largely untapped magical resources within her, and it is for this reason that her father is murdered, and the obligatory Forces of Evil want to kidnap her. There is this summoning ritual that requires great power and sacrifice, pretty standard evil demon stuff. Yuri and Alice travel together, gaining other allies with backstories that are as twisted as their own. Their rag-tag group of misfits sets out on the traditional journey to uncover the evil plot and save the world (twice).

Yuri has great people skills.

Shadow Hearts distinguishes itself from other RPGs by being so dark, brooding, and at times frightening. The tactical elements of Koudelka are abandonned, but the gothic horror setting remains. Murder, sacrifice, mental illness, child abuse and sexual impropriety are all touched on, and no effort is made to soften the subject matter for the audience. The in-game scenery is dark and dreary, rife with blood, bones and instruments of torture. The characters fight disfigured and misshapen ghouls and demons in almost every battle. The terrifying nature of the game and its enemies is even incorporated into Shadow Hearts‘s battle mechanics. Along with the traditional HP and MP, characters also have SP which stands for Sanity Points. As the battle progresses the characters will lose SP until their SP reaches zero, at which point the character goes insane and cannot be controlled. The mental stress of their surroundings and their freakish enemies literally drives the heroes mad with terror.

Gameplay in Shadow Hearts is fairly traditional, aside from the setting. Characters can explore towns and dungeons, items and equipment can be purchased or found, and there is a smattering of sidequests to keep completionists happy. In battle characters can attack, defend, use items, or use abilities unique to that character. Yuri, for example, is a Harmonixer. He can transform into a hideous demon and utilize that demon’s unique attacks and atributes. Each character has unique abilities tailored to suit their backstory and personality.

This thing will make you insane.

Another innovation gameplay-wise in Shadow Hearts is the Judgement Ring. Characters must time their actions to correspond with the movement of the Ring. An indicator sweeps clockwise around the Ring, and the player must press the confirm button on the controller at the appropriate time. Most Judgment Rings will consist of green “hit” areas and white “miss” areas. Within the green areas will be small red “critical” areas and pale “moderate” areas. Hitting anywhere within the green sections will allow for a successful action, however that action will be weaker if the moderate area is hit, and more powerful if the critical area is hit. Players who can master the timing of the Judgment Ring in battle will find the game progresses much more easily. The Ring is also used for certain out of combat events and puzzles, but it is primarily used in battle to attack or attempt to cast spells and abilities.

All in all, Shadow Hearts is a fairly short game (clocking in around 15 hours) that blends traditional RPG elements with the survival horror stylings of Koudelka. The characters are well-developed and engaging and the story has enough plot twists to keep the player interested. It offers a refreshing change from the typical “boy saves girl, boy falls in love with girl” RPG. Yes boy saves girl, and yes boy falls in love with girl, but this story is absolutely no Final Fantasy.

This Game Stinks!

Earthbound was developed by Ape and HAL Laboratory and was released by Nintendo for the SNES is 1994 (Japan) and 1995 (US). It is a traditional RPG with a self-abasing twist. While most RPGs of that era were set in idylic Eastern worlds, Earthbound bucked the trend and created a world that whimsically depicted Western culture and poked fun at the RPG genre. This unique tone is one of many aspects of the game that has divided players since Earthbound‘s release. To many this game is a one-of-a-kind cult classic, while others find it unsettling and simply not what they expect or want from an RPG, particularly a JRPG.

Earthbound is the story of a seemingly average boy named Ness. His hobbies include playing with his dog, hanging out with his friends at their secret hideout, wearing a cool red baseball cap, and playing with his yo-yo and baseball bat. He lives in a modest home in the suburbs of Onett with his mother, little sister Tracy and his father. His father never seems to be home and is only available via telephone. This seemingly normal boy discovers that he is in fact quite extraordinary when a meteorite lands near his home one night and Ness heads out to investigate. A time-travelling bee named Buzz-Buzz arrives then to inform Ness that he and three other children are destined to save the world from some Big Bad Evil named Giygas. Unfortunately a time-travelling alien Starman shows up and interupts the exposition. It is at this point that the player consciously or unconsciously makes a critical decision. Either the player accepts and embraces the insanity and chaos that must follow such an opening to a game, or the player does not and will remain too incredulous to enjoy the story. If time-travelling talking bees do not sound like a good time there are plenty of other RPGs that have good old-fashioned plots.

Earthbound Battle Screenshot

As Earthbound progresses, Ness travels the world making friends and meeting up with the other three children with whom he is destined to save the world. Along the way he discovers the impact that the mysterious Giygas is having on the world. Through space and time Giygas is able to manipulate the hearts and minds of people and creatures, bringing out the greed and evil that lurks deep within all beings. Ness must battle to restore order and end the corruption caused by Giygas.

Its quirky plot and characters aside, Earthbound is in many ways a very traditional RPG. Ness and his friends enter turn-based combat when they come into contact with an enemy. Characters gain experience through battles, and have stats such as HP, Offense, Defense and Speed that level up. Some characters also have psychic abilities that are this game’s version of magic. Characters can equip weapons and armor, and use items to restore HP or PP. Sure, they may fight enemies such as New Age Retro Hippies or Cranky Old Ladies rather than Slimes or Goblins, but the underlying mechanics of the gameplay should be very familiar to players.

Ness' Hometown: Onett

One of Earthbound‘s most divisive elements is its graphics. Some love them, some hate them, but all agree that they are distinct. The graphics look like something that was ripped out of a child’s colouring book and filled in using MS Paint. They are flat, bright, and lacking significant amounts of shading or texturing. One of the more interesting choices that the developers made regarding the game’s graphics was the decision to not create an overworld map but instead to have towns and dungeons flow naturally together via roads, caves and paths. The world therefore may not look at all realistic, but it certainly feels real when Ness has to hop on a bus in Threed in order to make it to neighbouring Fourside.

In contrast to Earthbound‘s polarizing graphics, the game’s music has been generally accepted and praised by the masses. It is catchy and very appropriate to the game’s tone and feel. The theme songs for the towns of Onett and Winters are particularly enjoyable. The score is limited by the technology of its day, but still holds up well against the test of time.

Earthbound is simply one of those games that a player either loves or hates. It is truly unique. While most games try to clone previous success, Earthbound mocks itself, its genre and the player. It is not another Final Fantasy or Zelda clone. It is a force unto itself. There is no shame in not being able to invest oneself in this game. There is only joy and amusement for those who can become invested. Certainly it is a game worth at least trying.

I only review games that are MODERN and RELEVANT.

Hi-ho, readers! Bringing you something completely different from last week, I shall review Final Fantasy Legend III for the Game Boy. Released on August 1993 in North America, Final Fantasy Legend III (or SaGa 3: Jikuu no Hasha as it is known in Japan) is the final game in a very loosely-connected trilogy of early Game Boy RPGs and is, as the name suggests, the third game in the SaGa series of games.

A much better box art, to be sure.

Surprisingly, FFL3 plays significantly differently from its earlier counterparts. While the first two games used weapon durabilities, a somewhat rigid class system, and heavy reliance on elements of luck, Final Fantasy Legend III uses a more traditional experience-based gameplay model with improved class flexibility. Two new classes are added to the roster, bringing the grand total up to six classes: Human, Mutant, Monster, Robot, as well as the new Beast and Cyborg classes. By utilizing various meats and parts dropped by enemies, the player is free to turn their original party of two Humans and two Mutants into any possible permutation of the six classes. No class change is permanent; it always remains possible to change a party member’s class with relative ease. The classes play rather similarly, with all classes except Monsters and Robots capable of using magic (which works now on a typical MP-based system), and all characters except Monsters being able to equip any weapon or piece of armor. Monster stats are, as in the first two games, driven by the character’s species (though their level will also play a role). Beasts, Humans and Mutants all function in relatively the same manner: all three can use any piece of equipment or any spell. Beasts also have various skills, called Talents, to make up for their low magic skills.

She's an evil enchantress, and she does evil dances...

Beasts do more damage than other classes with martial arts-based weapons, while Humans are proficient in all other weapons, and Mutants in magic. Robots function much the same as Humans did in the original Final Fantasy Legend: they cannot use magic, and their stats are raised by giving them stat pills, purchasable in the various shops of the game. Cyborgs work, appropriately, as a fusion of the Human and Legend II‘s Robot; their stats are derived largely from their equipment. While the player cannot choose their party at the game’s start as in the previous game, the flexibility of the newer system allows for greater control of party makeup. Weapon durabilities are thankfully done away with, and equipment now functions the same as it does in any typical JRPG.

As with any Game Boy RPG, the plot of FFL3 is largely forgettable. A vaguely defined water entity is flooding the world, and in the future, most land has been flooded. A man name Borgin sends three children back in time, where a village elder raises them, along with his granddaughter, to try and stop this entity before it is too late. The plot is forgettable, though the addition of time travel does make things a bit more interesting. The party’s four generic teenagers are also forgettable, but then, this is a Game Boy game after all. The plot is, overall, less interesting than that of the previous game. Who or what the entity is is almost never directly stated, but it is eventually given a name and, unsurprisingly, becomes the game’s final boss. As with most Game Boy games, there is little to comment on: the story of FFL3 isn’t necessarily bad so much as it is nonexistent and forgettable.

The audiovisual side of FFL3 is, as with the other two games, simply fantastic. The graphics are surprisingly detailed for a Game Boy RPG, though enemy sprites are reused constantly. The backgrounds are good, though the dungeon designs are a bit bland at times. However, where FFL3 truly excels is its music. As with Final Fantasy Legend II, the Game Boy’s tiny, crappy little sound output is truly pushed to its limit here. The battle music is exciting, the boss music suitably tuned, and the final boss theme simply spectacular. Final Fantasy Legend III pushes the Game Boy’s audio capabilities as far as it can. Interestingly, this was accomplished without Nobuo Uematsu: the soundtrack here was composed by Final Fantasy Mystic Quest composer Ryuji Sasai, in tandem with Chihiro Fujioka. Indeed, much of the team from FFMQ worked on Final Fantasy Legend III, and evidence of the team’s involvement can be seen throughout, as the influence of FFMQ is prevalent.

This is official character art from the game.

So by now, readers, you are likely asking: “Is this old Game Boy game really worth my time?”. The answer is undoubtedly yes. If Final Fantasy Legend II fixed the problems its predecessor had, then Final Fantasy Legend III fixed all of the problems from FFL2. Whether or not III is the better game is up for debate, but it easily the most polished of the trilogy, and is most certainly a game worth checking out.