Star Ocean: The Last Hope
Yesterday I felt a compulsion to shop, so I went into the local Gamestop and wandered until I found something that looks good. I actually haven’t been able to spend a lot on games recently, so I have been keeping deliberately uninformed as to what is coming out (silly I know). I was really amazed to see so many new interesting titles, though I was only craving RPG at the time, most of THOSE are on the DS or the Wii, and I was specifically looking to avoid the “You are a young boy who…” beginning. Eventually, I ended up picking up Star Ocean: The Last Hope despite its brand-new-just-came-out-today price tag. The staff at the store was supremely useless in telling me about it, so I went in with the safely pessimistic assumption of: “It’s similar to Star Ocean: Til The End Of Time, which I played for a while but found slow and difficult, eventually getting stuck on a boss fight with no health items and no ability to return to town, though this was years ago anyway. It could end up like that, although the better graphics and everything will hopefully add to the experience.”
I think I owe this game a pretty huge review, but right now I’m about seven hours in, so I can at least verify a few things.
- The first hour is extremely uninteresting. Like TtEoT, it’s entirely a tutorial where you learn the battle system.
- Said battle system is, in fact, at times annoying and confusing. It takes getting used to. For that matter, the whole “blindside” system is hard to pull off without a lot of practice, especially considering each character’s different fighting style makes the usability of this different for all of them.
- When the battle system isn’t annoying or confusing (most of the time), it’s pretty fun. Definitely picks up a lot when you get >2 party members.
- There is no prolonged agony of “I’m the only person in my party” where everything is really difficult.
- The first few hours make you play without an item store and without healing magic, but if you are careful (and okay with running around in the yellow a lot) that doesn’t really matter.
- First boss fight was somewhat confusing and I got KO’d because of said lack-of-item-shop, but the second time I kicked its ass, so it wasn’t by any means unbalanced.
- Probably the most annoying part about playing is the whole hour-between-most-save-points. I have somewhere to be tonight, but I stopped playing a lot earlier than I wanted to because I was worried I wouldn’t be able to save before leaving otherwise. Also, this is a big annoyance if you do get a game over…
- The storyline kicks serious ass. There are a nice balance (so far) of cutscenes vs. action sequences. The characters seem likable (except for the occasionally over-the-top staged dialogue that plagues most translated-to-English RPGs, i.e. “I was just getting warmed up! Bring it on!” and the use-your-whole-arm-to-point thing that girls apparently must do), though they definitely fit a fantasy-RPG stereotype of roles, and the sci-fi aspect of the game is mostly in the story and not so much in the actual gameplay, at least not yet.
- Lots of really long sessions where you can’t go back to the local city/spaceship and sell or create items, so far anyway.
Anyway, it’s really fun if you have enough time on your hands to play a somewhat lengthy session each time. I am a really big fan of the skill system, of this and all Star Oceans, except it is somewhat nonintuitive until you get the hang of it. Item creation I haven’t gotten to play with a lot, as I’ve only now maxed out some of the skills which improve item drop rates.
That’s all I’ve been up to on the gaming front. I was originally going to sit down and try to finish Final Fantasy XII, but my game disc is somewhere not inside its box. :[
Here’s the opening cutscene to the game (this movie plays before you press Start on the main menu).
Review: Boom Blox, Wii
Okay. So I’m finally back here to review something. This time around I decided to mix it up with a newer game for the Wii, Boom Blox (May 2008), created by Electronic Arts in cooperation with Steven Spielberg. His name is on the main title screen, and most people will probably never have any idea what he actually contributed to the project, but I liked seeing it because it reminded me of Animaniacs. It’s rated E for Everyone. Boom Blox isn’t something I technically own, but whoever lent it to Steve has left it at the apartment for so long that I keep forgetting it isn’t ours. And, we’ve played it obsessively for weeks now, which is obviously the only qualification necessary for me to compliment/mock any game.
The box art for the game Boom Blox.
The Gist Of It: Like nearly every other game on the Wii, Boom Blox makes exclusive use of the Wiimote. You don’t need the nunchuck to play at all. It has several different game modes, but the main idea of the game is that you’re either basically playing a game of complicated and shiny Jenga, or throwing balls at an intricate tower of blocks in order to knock them down and earn the most points. In single-player, there are over 300 levels broken into two categories, one with a sort of ’story’ to explain why you are flailing around in the living room. Usually, it has to do with a city or town of animals; in the first group of levels, a medieval culture of sheep-people need shiny jewels, then they are attacked by another various animal group, etc. One look at the cover art can give you an idea of what these animal people look like – blocky, squarish things that tend to wiggle to express any and all emotion.
Anyway, before I was sidetracked by the jell-o creatures – the second single-player mode is one that basically familiarizes you with the controls. In multiplayer, things really get interesting. You can have usually two and sometimes four players doing anything from pulling blocks out of a precarious tower, trying to avoid collapse, to chucking bowling balls at the opponent’s block castle, or throwing baseballs at a mountain of gold blocks trying to knock those with high-point values into oblivion. It has some original details as well, like a color-coded tower and a random pick of which color you’re allowed to remove, or giant green blocks that explode when they touch each other, or good old-fashioned bomb blocks that simply go boom.
This is a relevant update, really
So, since I have heard good things about my last review (though no one has left me any actual comments q_q) I’ve been compiling a list of other games to review in the near future. I have a large variety of games and consoles at my disposal, but I’m not sure if I should stick to one theme over another right now. What I mean is, since I started off with an SNES RPG, should I deliberately not review an RPG for a while, or maybe should I aim to review something new? Or should I just go with whatever comes to mind? I would rather try and write about things that aren’t already widely renowned as being amazingly good or bad, since that would make the informative value of the review pretty low. Any feedback on this would be appreciated. I’ll try to post another review before the end of the week. Ciao!
Review: Earthbound, SNES
Well, to start my review category off right, I’m going to write about something that I played on a whim and was immediately sucked in beyond all hope of rescue. That would be Earthbound, a game for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System originally released in 1994 and developed by Ape, Inc. Like many games of this time, it is a sequel to a title that was Japan-exclusive; its Japanese title is Mother 2: Gyiyg Strikes Back. Anyway, let’s get on with it.
The Gist of It: Earthbound is a role-playing game following the adventures of Ness, a boy living a regular life in America in the 1990s. When the game begins, you are literally controlling a pajama-clad Ness while you run around your hometown of Onette at night to see what all the commotion is about. Turns out, a meteor crashed near your house during the night – or that’s what everyone believes! In actuality an alien lifeform from the future – an insect named Buzz Buzz represented by very few pixels – has come to warn of another alien named Giygas who controls the world in the future. Naturally, Giygas is evil and horrible, and of course Ness must go on an adventure to prevent this from happening.
Apparently everyone is cool with the idea of a kid running out to save the world because your mom only suggests you change out of your pajamas, your sister gives you a baseball bat to fight with – and your dad, as follows throughout the game, talks to you on the phone in weird metaphors and monologues before asking if you’d like to save your progress. It comes out pretty early on that Ness has some sort of psychic powers as you’re contacted early on by a girl named Paula calling for help. Throughout the adventure, not only do you rescue and join up with Paula, there’s also Jeff, the boy genius who fixes random household objects into powerful weapons, and Poo, who is the prince of distant Dalaam and fights with martial arts (translation: there is hardly any gear for him to equip in the entire game).
A long stint of inactivity…
…which is hopefully nearing its end! Life has been keeping me on my toes and trying very hard to keep me from accomplishing anything beyond bill paying and menial work. But I am starting to get the hang of Pretending To Be Grown Up and therefore mastering the art of Appearing Grown Up But Really Thinking About Video Games All Day. (OK I’m done with the lame titles and capitalization. Sorry.) Anyway I don’t know WHY I didn’t start doing this months ago but I’m going to start writing random game reviews on this blog – random meaning whatever I can write without having taken notes along the way, and not presently anything new since I haven’t been entirely up to par on the new games scene. But, I have a big HD TV and a whole ton of consoles (just no PS3) so, really, I should be able to get something out there.
This entry isn’t going to be anything but what you’ve read so far: introduction to what’s coming. I’ll still try and blog about serious game issues and such when it comes to me, but I think writing reviews is going to take the majority of my blog. At least… FOR NOW!
