You know I don’t often play X-Box Live Arcade games, though I really should start doing it again. I played Deathspank recently, and although I never beat it, I did enjoy playing it to a moderate degree, and to this day I still play Magic the Gathering like it’s going out of style. Recently however I’ve started playing Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, and man am I having a blast! I have no idea why I don’t like the Castlevania series more than I do because playing this game reminded me of the fun I had playing Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin, and Order of Ecclasia. Okay, maybe not Order of Ecclasia (no freaking castle!? What a rip off!), but adding Harmony of Despair to the list is a pretty good resume of A-grade titles for the series.
For those unaware, Harmony of Despair, i.e. Castlevania HD (Get it? It’s an initialism pun!) is the new X-Box Live Arcade title that allows for a team of up to six players take control of five heroes from the more recent 2D Castlevania games (Soma, Alucard, Jonathan, Charlotte, and Shanoa) and let them go co-op through six massive maps. It’s a fun game when you get together a party of your friends and have them start ripping through the legions of badguys and the legitimately challenging series of bosses the game throws at you. The levels, enemies, and bosses are all hodgepodges from the more recent Castlevania titles (mostly the GBA and DS titles), but the game features enough variety that one play through isn’t enough. Five playthroughs isn’t enough. Hell, I’ve put enough time into this game to make most Bethesda RPGs jealous and I’m still not done playing. Why? It’s the Co-Op.
Anyone watching LordKaT’s stream (which you can view at LordKaT.com/live of course!) knows how much we’ve been playing the game. In fact, I’m stunned people are still watching the stream considering how much we’ve been playing. I guess it’s really entertaining for people to watch us farm. Yes, farm. Like all good Castlevania games they provide a great challenge up until you reach a point where you put enough work into the game to completely break everything. Let Soma or Alucard get a Valmanway, or let Charlotte max out her Heal spell and spam and Astral Ring/Skull Ring combo and watch the game crumble apart. Still, this is part—if not most of the fun. See, we spent hours fighting Brauner in Chapter 4 on Hard. Seriously, a good six hours had to be devoted to beating that guy just once. We struggled to defeat his paint spells and unblockable Curse/Poison spells before finally we grinded our way to having two Somas using RPGs and then we rocket launched his frilly ass into oblivion. Yeah, we could have spent hours perfecting our jumps and tactics, but part of the fun of Castlevania is picking up some sword with ridiculous stats that tears through your enemy like they were made of tissue paper and hollow ambitions. Fair? Well that’s to be debated. Fun? No argument, at least in the beginning. Eventually defeating the game’s six bosses can become tedious especially once they cease being a challenge, but at that point you can realize you have four more character to play through the game as, and this is the game’s other major strength.
The collection of Castlevania characters might have been a novelty had the cast not all played so radically different. The closest would be Soma and Alucard who use mostly the same weapons and armor, but level up differently. Soma has a wide variety of souls he can collect from just about every enemy in the game, and Alucard has four scrolls he can collect from different enemies that he powers up through successive collection that makes his moveset acute, but very powerful. Then you have Jonathan who becomes stronger as his subweapons are used more, Charlotte who becomes godlike as you absorb spells, and Shanoa who has a limited list of spells to absorb, but an amazing cap to her spells should you use them frequently. Each character is different and poses a different challenge, so once you get bored of one character, you can switch to another (which more characters to be included with DLC). That’s quite a lot of gameplay out of a game that costs $15.
Still, the game has flaws. Coding is buggy, and it’s not uncommon for people to get kicked from your group randomly. Maybe server issues caused it, but we’ve had it a lot so far. Also, the game requires you to grin, and for Charlotte grinding in a group of characters who aren’t also Charlotte is almost impossible. The amount of time it takes to fully level up a character can takes days, and honestly isn’t all that fun after a few hours, but it’s worth it in the end to run up and solo Dracula without needing to spend a potion. Would I recommend the game? Absolutely. Anyone who enjoyed the DS/GBA Castlevania titles will enjoy playing this game, though I can’t recommend it for those out there who don’t play online. Whether with friends or strangers, you need to have a party to enjoy this game, but trust me, you will. I can tell you now I’m close to fully leveling up Charlotte, and following that I look forward to giving Jonathan or Shanoa a try. Plus with the rumor of DLC to come very soon including two new characters and a new level, the shelf life of this game looks to extend dramatically.
My biggest regret about this game? It makes me want to play the DS Castlevania games again… and I sold all of mine. Sigh.
Showing posts with label Video Games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Video Games. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Final Fantasy XIII Rant
If you’ve been following my Twitter you know I’ve had some unkind things to say about the newest edition into the Final Fantasy franchise: Final Fantasy XIII. I said it was “awful” and “the worst Final Fantasy ever”, and I still stand by it. Maybe I’m not the best judge since X and XII were two of my favorites, but XIII could never hold a candle to those games, and for the haters out there who say I’m being biased, trust me when I say I really want to enjoy this game. I do. If I could just ignore my criticisms and say this is another fine SquareEnix RPG I would, but the fact is that when I boot up the disc I groan.
“Well Chris, you slim sexy slab of man you, why don’t you just stop playing?” I would if I hadn’t promised myself that I would finish this game or swear off the series forever. I’ve played Final Fantasy I, II, III, IV, VII, VIII, X, and XII, and I’ve yet to beat a single one of those games. I refuse to consistently poor money into a franchise I never finish, so XIII is a do-or-die. Either I beat the game, or I never spend another dime or hour playing a Final Fantasy game. It’s just misfortune that I made that promise on one the worst game in the franchise.
Before I hit on the negatives, allow me to praise what I can about the game, and to be fair there’s a lot. First off, presentation wise this blows every other Final Fantasy out of the water. Granted its only real contender was XII, but the look and feel of XIII is outstanding. Graphically it might be the best game on consoles. Aside from the odd hiccup where the designers forgot to texture fingers and handles, the game looks damn impressive, and the music has been pretty good. Not the best in my opinion, but damn good nonetheless—with the exception of the main pop song. Why they used a remix of the song for a random dungeon I will never know.
Also, I find the combat to be very enjoyable. I know some people find it clunky or boring, but I enjoy it. The game focuses on strategy instead of power leveling to overcome your shortcomings. If a boss is kicking your ass it’s because you’re playing too offensively, or too defensively. You need to quickly utilize the different classes in a combination to protect, heal, debuff, and do damage. I love that, and by and large the system works well. That isn’t to say the combat isn’t flawed. One big problem is the Stagger System. Basically if you do enough damage to a target to fill up their “Stagger Bar” then the target becomes “Staggered” and a staggered target has its defenses plummet, and it’s exposed to more effects. This works well when you can use it, but there are some enemies who are ridiculous to kill without the Stagger system. These enemies take forever to stagger unless you get a preemptive strike on them to boost the Stagger bar before the fight, and without doing that a fight can take eight minutes of hitting “A” over, and over, and over.
But again, the combat isn’t the problem. No, I enjoyed Final Fantasy XIII’s combat. What I don’t enjoy however are the characters. To me, the cast of an RPG are the most essential element to enjoying it. What separates an awful game like Luminous Arc from a great game like Fire Emblem is the fact that Fire Emblem’s cast is always excellent. Normally Final Fantasy doesn’t have this problem. Sure not every character is a winner, but there was always one character I could get behind—like Auron from Final Fantasy X or Red XIII from Final Fantasy VII (so many Roman numerals…). In Final Fantasy XIII however, I hate the entire cast. All of them. Every single character is unbearable, and I could go for hours about why I hate them, but I’ll keep it brief so that this doesn’t take forever.
*WARNING: The following contains SPOILERS for Final Fantasy’s piss poor excuse for a story.*
Sazh – Enjoyable now, but for the longest time his sole character gimmick was being “an old man”. Every phrase out of his mouth talked about how old he was, and I’m sorry Square, but being old does not define a fucking character.
Vanille – Least annoying character to me, but suffers due to a weak supporting cast. My main problem is I feel dirty playing with her. She looks like she’s 14, yet dresses like a stripper and speaks almost entirely in grunts early on, so I feel like I’m playing a hentei game or something.
Snow – Too stupid for his own good. I like bull headed bravado, but Snow is just stupid. His constant “I’ll save everyone” stuff gets old quick, but it gets really old after he let a mom die, and then manages to condemn her son to a short life time of prejudice, violence, and fear. Eventually this is… somewhat justified, but I had to play twenty hours to get to that point. Even then, he’s still borderline retarded. Also, his weapon is patches. God Final Fantasy is weird.
Lightning – The game’s villain in my opinion. Sure she’s supposed to be the protagonist/anti-hero, but twenty hours in and the game really hasn’t set up a villain, and Lightning has done some downright vile shit. She pretty much admits wanting to commit genocide on Cocoon after she gets branded, and she contemplates starving thousands of civilians all in a mission to do… something. Her motivation is kinda well... not there. Also, she plays the role of Palpatine in letting a small child give into his anger and become a killer. Our hero everybody…
Hope – Early on his response to every single problem was to fall to his knees and complain about it. Great. But after that he goes on a revenge plot to kill Snow, yet after having time after time to kill him, or at least confront him, he continues to say “not yet”. Jesus, Snow is such a fucking moron that the only thing the guy could do to make himself any more open would be to paint a big fucking target on his chest. Twenty hours into the game, Hope FINALLY does something. TWENTY HOURS. It feels like so much longer when the rest of the cast is so awful. God I fucking hate Hope.
So yeah, the characters are awful. I didn’t mention Fang because it takes you forever to get to her, and because she looks to be the one character I can enjoy for the time being. Part of the problem I have relating to these characters is because I never spend more than an hour or two with any given character. See the linear path the game follows means you don’t pick your party. Instead each area follows through with a set party, until you get to the next event which switches you over to another party. This, as you can imagine, gets old very quickly. There are times where you’ll spend hours with your party, and times when you spend fifteen minutes with your party. I honest to God walked down a hallway, and then had my characters change. I ask, what is the point? WHY WOULD YOU MAKE ME WALK DOWN A FUCKING HALLWAY JUST TO SWITCH MY CHARACTERS?! I ASK YOU GAME, WHY!? SO I CAN SOMETHING FROM THE TWENTY FEET I WALKED DOWN? THERE WAS NO STORY OR EXPOSITION, SO WHY NOT CUT TO THE FUCKING CHASE!? WHY!? DEAR SWEET JESUS WHY ALL THE FUCKING PARTY JUMPING!?
… Ahem. I apologize. I’ve gotten over most my anger, but the party system still bugs me. But I’ve been neglecting the story all this time, and the story has always been the bread and butter of Final Fantasy… or at least Square thinks so. Personally I’ve always thought Final Fantasy tried way too hard with its stories, but damn, I wish they had tried at all this time around. Again, I’m a little over twenty hours into XIII, and honestly, I don’t know what the story is. There’s no “but” or anything. There is NO story. I mean for the last twenty hours the characters have just been meandering around different areas doing nothing! There’s no motivation, there’s no goal, there’s just nothing! Why I am in this forest? I don’t fucking know. Why are we in the sewer? I don’t fucking know. Why are heading to this city. I DON’T FUCKING KNOW!
I can tolerate a lot of things, and I’ll tell you now I’m not a gaming snob. I don’t have some chip on my shoulder where I look down my nose at games and talk about how they aren’t good. I usually try to enjoy the games I’m playing, but Final Fantasy XIII is beyond enjoying. I don’t care how amazing your graphics are. I don’t give two shits how fantastic your music is. I couldn’t care less if your combat is enjoyable. If you’re an RPG, and your characters are unlikable and your story is non-existent, then YOU FUCKING FAIL!
“Well Chris, you slim sexy slab of man you, why don’t you just stop playing?” I would if I hadn’t promised myself that I would finish this game or swear off the series forever. I’ve played Final Fantasy I, II, III, IV, VII, VIII, X, and XII, and I’ve yet to beat a single one of those games. I refuse to consistently poor money into a franchise I never finish, so XIII is a do-or-die. Either I beat the game, or I never spend another dime or hour playing a Final Fantasy game. It’s just misfortune that I made that promise on one the worst game in the franchise.
Before I hit on the negatives, allow me to praise what I can about the game, and to be fair there’s a lot. First off, presentation wise this blows every other Final Fantasy out of the water. Granted its only real contender was XII, but the look and feel of XIII is outstanding. Graphically it might be the best game on consoles. Aside from the odd hiccup where the designers forgot to texture fingers and handles, the game looks damn impressive, and the music has been pretty good. Not the best in my opinion, but damn good nonetheless—with the exception of the main pop song. Why they used a remix of the song for a random dungeon I will never know.
Also, I find the combat to be very enjoyable. I know some people find it clunky or boring, but I enjoy it. The game focuses on strategy instead of power leveling to overcome your shortcomings. If a boss is kicking your ass it’s because you’re playing too offensively, or too defensively. You need to quickly utilize the different classes in a combination to protect, heal, debuff, and do damage. I love that, and by and large the system works well. That isn’t to say the combat isn’t flawed. One big problem is the Stagger System. Basically if you do enough damage to a target to fill up their “Stagger Bar” then the target becomes “Staggered” and a staggered target has its defenses plummet, and it’s exposed to more effects. This works well when you can use it, but there are some enemies who are ridiculous to kill without the Stagger system. These enemies take forever to stagger unless you get a preemptive strike on them to boost the Stagger bar before the fight, and without doing that a fight can take eight minutes of hitting “A” over, and over, and over.
But again, the combat isn’t the problem. No, I enjoyed Final Fantasy XIII’s combat. What I don’t enjoy however are the characters. To me, the cast of an RPG are the most essential element to enjoying it. What separates an awful game like Luminous Arc from a great game like Fire Emblem is the fact that Fire Emblem’s cast is always excellent. Normally Final Fantasy doesn’t have this problem. Sure not every character is a winner, but there was always one character I could get behind—like Auron from Final Fantasy X or Red XIII from Final Fantasy VII (so many Roman numerals…). In Final Fantasy XIII however, I hate the entire cast. All of them. Every single character is unbearable, and I could go for hours about why I hate them, but I’ll keep it brief so that this doesn’t take forever.
*WARNING: The following contains SPOILERS for Final Fantasy’s piss poor excuse for a story.*
Sazh – Enjoyable now, but for the longest time his sole character gimmick was being “an old man”. Every phrase out of his mouth talked about how old he was, and I’m sorry Square, but being old does not define a fucking character.
Vanille – Least annoying character to me, but suffers due to a weak supporting cast. My main problem is I feel dirty playing with her. She looks like she’s 14, yet dresses like a stripper and speaks almost entirely in grunts early on, so I feel like I’m playing a hentei game or something.
Snow – Too stupid for his own good. I like bull headed bravado, but Snow is just stupid. His constant “I’ll save everyone” stuff gets old quick, but it gets really old after he let a mom die, and then manages to condemn her son to a short life time of prejudice, violence, and fear. Eventually this is… somewhat justified, but I had to play twenty hours to get to that point. Even then, he’s still borderline retarded. Also, his weapon is patches. God Final Fantasy is weird.
Lightning – The game’s villain in my opinion. Sure she’s supposed to be the protagonist/anti-hero, but twenty hours in and the game really hasn’t set up a villain, and Lightning has done some downright vile shit. She pretty much admits wanting to commit genocide on Cocoon after she gets branded, and she contemplates starving thousands of civilians all in a mission to do… something. Her motivation is kinda well... not there. Also, she plays the role of Palpatine in letting a small child give into his anger and become a killer. Our hero everybody…
Hope – Early on his response to every single problem was to fall to his knees and complain about it. Great. But after that he goes on a revenge plot to kill Snow, yet after having time after time to kill him, or at least confront him, he continues to say “not yet”. Jesus, Snow is such a fucking moron that the only thing the guy could do to make himself any more open would be to paint a big fucking target on his chest. Twenty hours into the game, Hope FINALLY does something. TWENTY HOURS. It feels like so much longer when the rest of the cast is so awful. God I fucking hate Hope.
So yeah, the characters are awful. I didn’t mention Fang because it takes you forever to get to her, and because she looks to be the one character I can enjoy for the time being. Part of the problem I have relating to these characters is because I never spend more than an hour or two with any given character. See the linear path the game follows means you don’t pick your party. Instead each area follows through with a set party, until you get to the next event which switches you over to another party. This, as you can imagine, gets old very quickly. There are times where you’ll spend hours with your party, and times when you spend fifteen minutes with your party. I honest to God walked down a hallway, and then had my characters change. I ask, what is the point? WHY WOULD YOU MAKE ME WALK DOWN A FUCKING HALLWAY JUST TO SWITCH MY CHARACTERS?! I ASK YOU GAME, WHY!? SO I CAN SOMETHING FROM THE TWENTY FEET I WALKED DOWN? THERE WAS NO STORY OR EXPOSITION, SO WHY NOT CUT TO THE FUCKING CHASE!? WHY!? DEAR SWEET JESUS WHY ALL THE FUCKING PARTY JUMPING!?
… Ahem. I apologize. I’ve gotten over most my anger, but the party system still bugs me. But I’ve been neglecting the story all this time, and the story has always been the bread and butter of Final Fantasy… or at least Square thinks so. Personally I’ve always thought Final Fantasy tried way too hard with its stories, but damn, I wish they had tried at all this time around. Again, I’m a little over twenty hours into XIII, and honestly, I don’t know what the story is. There’s no “but” or anything. There is NO story. I mean for the last twenty hours the characters have just been meandering around different areas doing nothing! There’s no motivation, there’s no goal, there’s just nothing! Why I am in this forest? I don’t fucking know. Why are we in the sewer? I don’t fucking know. Why are heading to this city. I DON’T FUCKING KNOW!
I can tolerate a lot of things, and I’ll tell you now I’m not a gaming snob. I don’t have some chip on my shoulder where I look down my nose at games and talk about how they aren’t good. I usually try to enjoy the games I’m playing, but Final Fantasy XIII is beyond enjoying. I don’t care how amazing your graphics are. I don’t give two shits how fantastic your music is. I couldn’t care less if your combat is enjoyable. If you’re an RPG, and your characters are unlikable and your story is non-existent, then YOU FUCKING FAIL!
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